Contact at Kobol
by wilkins75
Summary: The scrolls tell that 13 tribes left the birthplace of humanity on Kobol, 12 went one way and the other Earth went another only to lose all contact with their cousins. It is written that one day they would reunite but when they Earth meets their cousins it is not what they expected and it would cost both sides in blood. (Stargate SG1/Battlestar Galactica)
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1 The Eight Year Plan**

The sky was a picture perfect as the leaders of the world most powerful nations gathered together on a large ski resort in Switzerland, the men and women who controlled 35 of the world's most powerful and most advanced nations. They ranged from their humble host Switzerland to the military powerhouses of Russia, China and the United States. The news around the world called this meeting a discussion about a possible new massive trade deal, which would open the boarders for all the nations to free trade with member nations. In fact the group meeting was in reality the representatives of each member nation of the International Oversight Advisory which had control over the top secret Stargate Program and all other off world activities.

"With the ending of threat caused by the ORI and the return of Atlantis to Earth the time is right to tell the public." offered up the French President as he like the rest of the world leaders walked around a large open lounge. It had three large stone fireplaces, two on the far wall and one located in the center of the room. To most of the public the actual meeting where leaders sat around a table and talked was where deals where made but in truth most of the deals happened while they were having breaks between those endless hours of the table. "We have no real threats to earth is it not better to tell the news now than when we are under attack by the next enemy."

"The Wraight are still out there and trying to find Earth." Countered the Mexican President

"They are in another galaxy and according to our latest reports they are still at war with each other." defended the French President. "The same could be said about the Lucian Alliance since the rise to power of the Farkin family inside Lucian Alliance power structure. The Farkin family wanted the Lucian Alliance which currently was nothing more than just a den of smugglers to become instead become a true government. They are fighting each other trying to decide which path to follow, we have no enemies at the moment."

"And what of the problems here on Earth?" offered up the Russian President "We have so much problem areas that could exploded or haven't you seen the Middle East lately? We need to keep the Stargate hidden until we have our own house in order."

"But the Stargate could be the very solution to our problems." offered up the Indian President as she took a drink of tea from a cup worth more than some of her people made in a year. "It may not be a problem for you in Russia but we have too many souls for such a small amount of land. We could start colonization of new worlds and it would be a release value for population. Our problems come from not having room for our population and the resources for those people. That isn't even looking at the solutions which could come from the information from the Asgard and Ancient databases, my husband is a doctor and I have inquired about the medical information in those databases and they could save millions of people."

"Maybe your right but the people are not ready if we drop this on them now we will have a crash of the world economy and people running through the streets believing that an attack will happen at any moment." Countered the Russian President as he took a drink from his glass of voka, the days meetings where over so the bar was open and the drinks were flowing. "We have only a handful of ships and the others have thousands. True our ships are arguably the strongest in the galaxy but as we taught the Nazi's in the Great Motherland war numbers can make up for a lot of things."

"We find ourselves caught between a rock in a hard place, if we tell the world about the Stargate we will have panic but the Stargate could solve a lot of problems," reported the French President as he lifted his white wine up to his lips.

"Well maybe I can offer a solution." said the British Prime Minister as she walked forward with a drink in her own hands. "I was just talking with the American President, the Chinese's Premier and a handful of others and we have the outline of a possible deal which could address many issues."

"What is that?" asked the Mexican President

"That we put in place as the Chinese's Premier said a plan over a set under of years say eight years, during this time we lay the ground work for revealing the truth to the world down here and move forward in key areas up in space." explained the British Prime Minister as she took a drink.

"What plans are those?" asked the Indian President

"First we build up our forces in space so that we can demonstrate right away to our people that we are safe from harm and at the same time we find planets which could be colonized right away." explained the British Prime Minister "At the same moment we focus our problems down here."

"I am sorry but we haven't been able to solve some of these problems for decades what will eight years change?" asked the Mexican President "Take Terrorism for example the Americans have been fighting it for almost a decade and they are no closer to ending it, add on global warming, overpopulation and everything else."

"Eight years with the combined forces off all the nations in this room all pushing for a single goal. Imagine how those terrorist will quake when they learn that the forces of every nation here is against them," rebutted the British Prime Minister "If that happened only the force of God himself could stop us from reaching our goals and that is just terrorism. We can start releasing cures for some the deadliest sickness on Earth, start using all the energy breakthroughs to produce clean energy and we can settle other differences we have."

"This could work." offered up the Russian President "However it will mean a complex deal, including who gets ships first and what type, I have seen the outline of the new ships classes the Americans have provided and only a certain numbers of ships could be built at any one time on Earth we will need to fix that."

"But a deal that could be reached." Reassured the British PM

Just over a week later the news went out across the world that not only was a treaty made which would unite the military powers of all the signing nations in an attempt to combat and put an end to global terrorism but a new open boarder trade deal was also going into effect. What the news broadcasters and other talking experts did not know was that there was a secret second agreement where the nations decided what each would get from the Stargate program and when. Most nations wanted first access to key technology, which would benefit their nation first.

Little did the news media know that at the same time they were discussing the stunning alliance of so many powerful and normally competitive nations an order was sent out to the off world forces.

**General Order 231-D21**

The Stargate and all the off world activities of the Nations of Earth cannot and should not be hidden from the people of Earth forever. To that end the member nations of the IOA have set the goals to be active as soon as possible so that when the people of Earth learn the truth they know that not only are they safe but a new golden future is ahead.

**1)** In order to help prepare the world for the unveiling of the Stargate and life outside of planet Earth, technology recover from off world and the Asgard Database will be used to help fix current problems on Earth. These include medical, energy and other breakthroughs which will be unveiled to the world be different nations taking credit for the discoveries. Military forces on Earth will focus also on combatting terrorism and other threats in an effort to passive the Earth before the reveal.

**2)** The discovery and colonization of at least one planet, which will be the foundation of our new military buildup program. This world have to be unclaimed by any other race and whenever possible not known to any other power in the galaxy. The planet needs to have the needed mineral resources required for the construction of the new ships currently in development. This should be completed no later than one year from the current date.

**3)** Since constructing the warships in secret on Earth is highly costly even with the addition of the Siberian shipyard this planet will be the new shipyard and testing centers of our new joint military forces. Once settled we will move military engineers to the planet and begin to mass production of the following.

F-302 Eagle fighter Interceptors and all the new variants

BC-304 Daedalus class Battle Cruiser

A-305 Osprey close air support aircraft (Pending final Approval)

S-306 Owl transport (Pending Final Approval)

B-307 Condor Bomber (Pending Final Approval)

Mass production of these aircraft and warships should begin no later than two years then the giving of this order.

**4)** The planet will also be the testing and construction center for the planned warships including but not limited to the following depending on how they prototypes test. These ships will be park of the reveal to the people of Earth and which nations get what ship first will be worked out at a later conference along with who will get first rights to colonize worlds.

D-308 The Galahad Class Destroyer

C-309 The Hadrian Class Construction Ship

DS-310 The Kusanagi Class Defense station

SRV-311 The Archimedes Class Science and Research Vessel

BS-312 The Missouri Class Battleship

AC-313 The Yorktown Class Aircraft Carrier

**5)** This planet will serve as the center of our new off world command centers, which in time will be charged with defending the surrounding human populations from harm. Since the Goa'uld took human populations from Earth to use as slaves it has been decided that all efforts should be made to unite the humans through peaceful means either by forming trade links or actual unification into a single organization. The people will not under any means be forced to join us and only those people who are aware of the Stargate or has active advanced space flight will be considered for contact yet alone membership. Since the population of Earth will not be the only ones in this new alliance, it is decided that all our ships and government will go by the name Tau'ri in all communications, under no situation shall the location of Earth or any other world be given to any other race without the permission of all the member nations.

**6)** Of lesser important planets should also be located and mapped for future civilian only colonization and even for the settlement of endangered earth animal and plant life in a planet sized nature reserve so that they could live without the threat caused by human actions.

That order was dispatched to all current off world sites and warships and after a small amount of cursing by the staff at the timetable put forward by the politicians, they went to work carrying out their orders.

**Five and a half months later space ripped open in a massive vortex appeared as a gun metal grey ship shot out, moments later space returned to normal as the vessel began to move under its less powerful sub light engines.**

"Attention on deck!" yelled an officer in full dress uniform as the men and women at the controls of the vessel stood up and saulted as a woman dressed in full Chinese Liberation Army Dress Uniform.

"At ease." ordered Captain Sung as the first Captain of a Chinese's intergalactic vessel it was her honor to lead her nations first intergalactic vessel. Deep downed she knew that putting aside her high marks in school and in the years of loyal serves to her nation that one of the main reasons she had been chosen was because of who her great grandfather and father had been. He had been a top lieutenant to Mao Zedong himself and her father had raised the family higher by becoming a general in the army until his retirement last year.

"Anything to report." inquired Captain Sung as she sat down at her command chair, behind her engraved into the very wall of the bridge was the seal of her nation, while not as large as the red flag panted on the haul of the ship it reminded everyone who the ship belonged to.

"We have entered the system and have begun the survey mission." reported her second in command as Sung nodded her head before lifting up a cup of tea which had been set out for her morning enjoyment before she arrived on the bridge.

"Single star system with six planets but only one in the habitable range. Four of them are nothing but gas giants and the remaining one is so close to the star I am amazed it has not been destroyed. There are also two asteroid belts which may have some minerals of note" Reported the second in command "Six hours for a total survey of the area."

"I see." said Captain Sung as she took off her cap and placed it on a nearby rest, that caused some of her dark hair to fall in front of her eyes. She pushed it back before asking the next question. "Anything else going on in the rest of the galaxy?"

"Nothing out of normal Comrade Captain, the other three ships on our mission have found some possible sites for the base but the IOA have rejected them all for one reason or another," reported the second in command. The Captain knew that beside her ship the Canadians, Japanese and Germans each had ships out looking for a planet to become main shipyards, which would build the warships, cargo ships and other vessels for the people of earth to grow. In truth Captain Sung had a bet going on with her other captains to see who would find the right planet, losers had to buy the winner choice of alcoholic drinks. She knew her national leaders would look down on the bet but if it motivated her and her crew to find the planet, first it was worth it.

"All four American ships plus those two new British have launched a joint operation in the Pegasus Galaxy against the Wraith. While the French are visiting the free Jaffa Capital and it the Russians turn to keep an eye on Earth with their two ships." Reported the second in Command as he reported the position of all 13 Daedalus class warships that the nations of Earth had, the Russians should have had three ships but one had been destroyed by the Ori and her nation second ship was still being built back on earth. However nations like Brazil, Spain, Australia, South Korea and others all wanting ships of their own plus the next generation of warships being designed couldn't be built unnoticed on Earth so a new planet was needed.

"Very good, now let's get to work," ordered Captain Sung as the Sun Tzu went to work. All in all it was a fairly normal operation just like all the other missions before. The Sun Tzu started on outside of the system and worked its way in, traditionally the survey would be done by SG teams going out of the Stargate but it was impossible for them to do a good sweep of a planet or any other planet in a system. The Gas giants had what they expected a lot of small moons and asteroids some of which showed small amounts of the rare element Naquadah and that was noted for the report. Finally, the Sun Tzu entered orbit of the habitable planet. The crew looked down on the uninhabited planet from their view they could see the fields of green and the deep blue of the massive oceans. It looked like almost all the other habitable plant they had scanned, there didn't seam to be any sign of advance life as in no electrical light or radio broadcasts.

"A very nice planet." reported the second in command as he looked down at his computer pad where information from the scanner was coming in "Slightly bigger then Earth however only two major land masses but each is larger than Asia."

"Well mark it down for possible colonization." ordered Captain Sung knowing her secondary mission was to map possible colonization. Earth was crowed and having multiple new planets to colonization would remove that problem very fast.

"More than that." said another officer "If these readings are right this planet has almost 7% Naquadah in it's crust. If this is true it is the richest source of Naquadah in the known galaxy and it gets better I am detecting multiple large deposits of Trinuim and titanium all near the surface."

That caused the entire bridge crew to smile knowing that their captain had promised them drinks if she won the bet and if this reading was true they may have just won. This planet seamed to a gift from fate, it had everything needed for making warships on a massive scale.

"I want an away team to be sent down at once launch fighters for a more detailed survey of the planet," ordered Captain Sung as a smile crossed her face as she looked that the sensor readings of the planet far below. There were some remains of a previous civilization but they were all overgrown with plant life. On top of that they were far away from any of the Jaffa nation base or a free system which had started to appear after the fall of the Goa'uld all those years ago. Another sign was that there did not seem to be any sign of the refined Naquadah which was he key indicator of a Stargate. No Stargate and the lingering residue of radiation meant the planet was up for grabs and Earth was about to grab it.

Within moments ten figures appeared in the middle of a field, all of them where dressed in the combat uniform of the People's Liberation Army and eight of them where armed with the standard issue QBZ Assault Rifle, one was armed with light machine gun and the officer was armed with only his stand issue pistol.

"Fan out, begin a sweep of the area." ordered the officer as men spread out with their weapons ready in case of any danger. Within minutes, the drone of aircraft engines filled the air as F-302 began to sweep the planet for any sign of advanced life.

"Dragon flight lead to ground team." came the voice of the squadron commander for the Zue Su F-302 aircraft over the radio.

"Go ahead Dragon 1." Confirmed the ground officer

"I have what appears to be man made structures ¼ Kilometers to your south west, recommend you head that way." advised the F-302 pilot as he banked his fight to orbit the stone remains.

"Understood heading that way." confirmed the ground officer

**Above their heads Captain Sung was already on her second cup of tea when she got the first low level scan reports from her F-302, no current sign of life either advanced or otherwise.** There was some sign of the planet having advanced life in the past, mostly the fact that the whole planet had low level of nuclear radiation but the mount of decay put the war almost two thousand years ago. No other signs of life and after that long of time without advanced life the planet was up for grabs.

"File a report for Earth we may have just found the planet." ordered Captain Sung to her first officer who snapped to attention before going out to deliver the message. "We should have company soon."

**Turns out the Captain had been correct and within twelve hours, four out of the thirteen Daedalus class ships was in orbit of the planet. Nearly every ship Earth had which wasn't assigned to either the protection of Earth itself or off in the Pegasus galaxy was in orbit.** The only ships missing was the two Russian warships tasked to defend Earth and the four American and two British which was launching an attack in Pegasus. However along with her ship the Sun Tzu the Canadian warship St. Francies, the German Drache, Japanese's Akizuki was in orbit and the fifth ship the French warship Bretagne was on her way as well after finishing her diplomatic visit to the free Jaffa home world.

"Well Captain Sung looks like you have won our little bet." offered the German Captain as the Captains of all four ships met on the surface of the planet. Already teams where setting out for a more detailed mineral survey and 302s where doing even sweeps from the sky.

"So it would seem my comrade." said Captain Sung with a smile "Now about my payment."

"We can't be sure that the IOW will choice this world." countered the Japanese Captain

"They would be fools not to," admitted the Canadian Captain the only other women among the captains. "I will have your choice of alcohol ready when you return to Earth."

"I already have it," stated the German as the others looked at him. "Once we made the bet I went out and got some of what everyone wanted, I thought I would give it a try when I won but looks like I will not be able to."

"I will share some with you," offered Captain Sung with a small laugh "In fact I will share some with all of you."

"Thank you that is kind of you." said the Canadian

"Besides I will still have two bottles for myself once it is all done," noted Captain Sung with a smirk.

**Within weeks a massive operation had begun on the planet now called Valhalla, it was named after the Viking form of heaven and in honor of the Asgard who had given them the legacy.** Now that the IOW had settled on the planet the real work to begin. Valhalla was going to be the single largest operation ever carried out by Earth in space; it was going to be larger than Atlantis itself. In the end twenty two engineering Battalions each about 800 men strong where selected from fourteen nation to be sent there. Since it was going to be impossible to hide the movement of that many troops yet alone keep that many people away from their families for the time needed a decision was made, after the basics for live was in place the families would follow the soldiers.

**Eleven months after the founding of Valhalla General Henry "Hank" Landry was finishing the last of his paperwork at his desk in Stargate Command.** The aged United States Air Force General was in his final months of command of the SGC, looked down at his watch before standing up. It was a short walk from his desk to the departure area where the Stargate was located already standing there waiting for him was members of the IOA.

"Walter dial, Valhalla." ordered General Landry as the Gate started spinning as the chevron locked one after another until the seventh was in place and the wormhole opened up. Originally, the planet did not have a Stargate but it was rather simple to place a Stargate from the left over Galaxy Bridge.

"Shall we?" offered Landry as the five of them headed up the ramp and seconds later found themselves on the other end of the galaxy. Unlike the other off world bases, the Stargate on Valhalla was out in the open, so that large equipment could come and pick up pallets of supplies which arrived almost hourly from Earth. Instead, four large fortifications surrounded the gate with armed guards ready to defend it from any attack. Around the ring, it was a ring of flagpoles each with the flags of the nation's taking part in the alliance.

"General thanks for coming." said the Indian General Raj-Singh as he saluted his American Counterpart and the IAO members "Welcome to Valhalla."

"Thank you for having us General Raj-Singh." said the British IAO member "We are looking forward to seeing what you have done here."

"I hope to impress you; we are actually two weeks ahead of our time tables." reported General Raj-Singh as the Humvees came around to pick up the guest.

"Really how did you manage that?" inquired the Japanese IAO member

"Through completion, I assigned companies from different nations to slimier jobs like building factories for aircraft, mines or the shipyard bay for a class or warship and had they race against each other to get the job done right." explained General Raj-Singh. As the Humvee moved down a paved road toward a large line of hangers and factories, some of which were still under construction "And they compete against each other for national pride and some extra perks such as Beers and other items."

"I am sure my nation is winning of course?" asked the Chinese IAO member with a smirk.

"They are second here actually behind the Americans. A second PLA unite did finish the first construction bay of a Daedalus class ship first a whole week ahead of the British." reported General Raj-Singh as the Chinese IAO eyes narrowed at the news. They moved down the road pasting the hangers where once there where finished the F-302 Eagle Fighters, A-304 Osprey Ground Attack and S-305 Owl transports would be housed once the factories where put into full production. The larger factory for the building of the Condor Bomber was still only half way up.

"What about the Civilian housing?" asked the British IAO member.

"We should have everything in place in time, we have a settlement in place twenty-five miles away from here and we have a high speed rail system under construction." Reported General Raj-Singh as General Landry nodded his head. He had already seen the plan to move the families of the almost 18,000 men and women already here to their new home. Alongside them, they would have to move support personal for the civilian populations such as teachers, cops, firefighters and others. Alongside them, the plan was also to move most of the researchers and their families from Area 51 to Valhalla. Overall almost one million men, women and children would soon call this planet home. That number would only grow as more men and women showed up to build and later man the ships which would be coming out of the planet.

The world would have noticed the missing people however, the number of people would be spread out across multiple countries and the world was busy with dealing with all the major changes, which was going on as part of the build up to the unmasking of the Stargate program. When they had left the news had just broke about the "discovery" by a French research team of a antivirus which according to the news would likely be key to finding a vaccine or maybe a cure for the Aids virus. In truth, the discovery came from the Asgard database with some human fine-tuning but it still provided hope for millions of people.

The tour kept going on showing the four newly finished bays where the BC-304 Daedalus Class Battle Cruiser, D-308 Galahad Class Destroyer and the SVR-311 Archimedes Class Science and Research Vessel. Since all three classes where roughly the same size they would be constructed in the same station. The shipyards where massive rectangle holes in the ground lined with equipment to build the next generation of ships. Once the planned bays were finished, the larger bays would be constructed for the other ships. The defense satellites would be built multiple parts on the ground then assembled together in space into their final form.

All in all the tour took the better part of five hours before they finally returned to the gate for the journey home.

"General Raj-Singh you are doing an even better job then we believed possible." stated the British IOA member with a smile.

"Thank you sir, but this wouldn't have been possible without the efforts of the SGC and the constant running back and forth of our current ships providing us with supplies we currently can't produce here." confirmed General Raj-Singh "Hopefully within 18 months we can have you all back for the launch of our first group of ships."

"We hope so as well." said General Landry as the two shared a salute before the gate activated for the journey back to Earth.

**Well I hope you enjoy the first chapter of this story and the set up I am doing for this story. Now I hope you come back and keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2 The Corner Stone**

Finally the day had come nearly three years after the planet was discovered and the massive project of building Earth's joint space military force began the day had come to reap the first harvest of those efforts. Valhalla now had over a million and a half people living on it and while most where dedicated to the building of the warships and other weapons not all, some where just regular people living their lives on a new world. On this day high-level member of the IOA had arrived for the greatest mass launch of ships to date.

All twelve shipyard had finished ships in them just waiting for the order to launch, half their number that would be the first ship for several nations. This launch would also include the official launch of two new ship class, the first D-307 Galada class Destroyer, christened the Galada would take off for the United Kingdom along with the UK third BC-303 Daedalus class warship. The other ship class launching was the SVR-Archimedes Class Science and Research Vessel, which would belong to Japan. Adding to their already existing Daedalus class warships fleet would be Russia, Germany and France, two Chinese and another Russian ship had launched from the Siberian shipyard weeks earlier. Besides those four nations, adding to their already existing fleets Australia, South Korea, Brazil, India, Italy and South Africa would be getting their first ships. This would bring the total number of ships under Earth to twenty-eight.

The column of Humvees rolled down the paved street toward the marshalling area, the marshalling area was a massive triangle shaped paved open space located between the three runways. Normally this area was left open for the loading and unloading of supplies. Now instead the whole area along with the areas in front of the hangers where covered with the newly built war planes of the Earth Military. The black jet fighters of the F-302 Interceptor where the most dominate aircraft but they where not alone.

The new A-304 Ground Attack aircraft looked like a space age version of the A-10 Warthog of the United States stood in formation with their pilots standing beside their aircraft. Along with them the C-305 Owl recon aircraft, it had four main engines with two thrust engines located back and above and two engines built into the wings itself which would allow the craft to hover or land vertical. It had a large ramp in the back and two pilots in the front, the standard version could carry up to 18 fully armed soldiers and other variants carried more advanced sensors and even extra fuel for midspace refueling of long-range patrol F-302s. (I modeled them after the Quinjet from the Marvel movies)

Also on the field where a flight of the newly made Condor Bomber, it was shaped like a more pointed version of the B-1 bomber and unlike the other aircraft on the field minus the recon C-305 Owl version the bomber was capable of long range hyperspace flight meaning it could attack targets away from the fleet. While their smaller cousins where only capable of limited short range FTL jumps.

The marshaling area was where the ceremony for the launch of all 12 ships would take place from the marshaling area. In the lead Humvee sat the head of all off world forces and the former leader of the top tier off world team and presciently promoted four star General, Johnathan "Jack" O'Neill. He was not alone sitting in the Humvee with him was his former teammates on SG1 Brigadier General Samantha Carter, Doctor Daniel Jackson and the Jaffa warrior Teal'c.

"Well this is going to a historic day," reported the current head of Stargate Command Brigadier General Samantha Carter as she drove the Humvee around the area taking a look at the forces gathered before them.

"When we first started going through the Gate I never thought I would see something like this." Expressed Daniel

"Wait until you see the launch of the Battleships and our first carrier in a few years." Reported Carter "Those ships where designed to take on any ship in the galaxy and win, part of the reason why the top brass isn't throwing a fit about not getting a new ship in almost three years is the fact that we get two of the battleships and the first carrier."

"One Battleship." corrected General O'Neill as Carter looked toward her friend. "The Politicians traded the other one to China."

"But I thought China gave up their claim for one of the first five Battleships for first access to a planet for colonization once the Stargate is made public, wasn't that in the treaty?" Countered Carter, she had seen the deal of which nation would get first dibs for off world colonization with China and India in the lead, both of whom had traded some of the first group of warships for that honor. It made some sense that those two nations would do that since they are the most crowed nations on Earth.

"They did, however the damn paper pushers traded our second battleship to them for a forgiveness of 75% of our national debt that they own." Stated Jack with a groan "Seemed like a no brainer to people in Washington, any weapon technology that comes from the Gate can't be used on Earth and it looks good to have the debt go down right now. I suppose the only good thing was that in the deal China has to recognize Taiwan as an independent nation but still to lose a battleship to that is a pain in the ass."

"How are they selling that to the public?" inquired Daniel

"By telling them China bought the designs for new power generator system from the US energy Department which developed it using a rare element they made in the lab." Explained Jack knowing what was really coming out were Naquadah generators which would someday put all other power generator methods out of business on Earth. The Government had put out a story that this new energy breakthrough was the product of research inside government lab and that meant the government owned it. It was almost the same cover story that every government was using, the French used it when they announced a cure for cancer two years ago and Israeli did it for aids two weeks before that AIDs both discovers came from knowledge from the Asgard core.

"There will be more battleships coming on line once the first five are launch, I have seen the IOW plan for the next ten years of ship building and this place will be busy." reassured Carter to her boss and old friend. "They are already expending the construction centers here and finding another planet to start building the civilian colony ships and even city ships like Atlantis."

"I haven't even seen that report, how did you get it before me?" inquired Jack

"I didn't I am just a more diligent about reading the reports then you are." explained Carter as they shared a laugh.

"I was hoping to get a chance to visit the dig on the remains of the city?" inquired Daniel as he looked down at a small computer pad. "According to the research teams they think it is the remains of an Opera House or maybe a performance art center and they want me to confirm some of their translations."

"This should take a while but we can always let you come back," confirmed Cater as the Humvee passed the first line of the newly designed German designed Leopard 3 tanks and one of the massive Lion tank designed by Russia.

The Leopard 3 looked more like a traditional tank, only these tanks where designed to fold up along it's side and go through the gate. The Russian Lion looked like something out of a sci-fi movie, it had six massive legs which allowed it to move across almost any terrain and it had twin long range cannons located on the top and a minimized Asgard beam cannon which could turn anything to ash but it had a short range and long cool down time. The problem was that they where slow and the size of the thing.

Beside them was the Israel designed six wheeled Cougar APC and the French designed Puma recon vehicle, the Spanish Tiger Mobile Rocket launcher and the new heavy field guns were on display. All of those vehicles along with the new standard rifle, Light and heavy machine gun and other small arms was within months of going into production on Valhalla. The joke among the highest-ranking members of the US military was this world should have been called the Armory due to all the weapons, which was coming out.

News reports were on hand to record the events however all the tapes would be sealed by the parent companies governments until the Stargate Program was unveiled to the world. The ceremony mostly was all speeches as each nation took turn christening their ships which at some cases where miles away from the actual ceremonial spot. Finally when the last speech was done a single went out and a rumble filled the air as twelve ships lifted off the ground, all of them where in visual range of the ceremony and ten of them where BC-303 and appeared at a distance to be the same.

Only the British Destroyer and the Japanese science vessel stood out. The Destroyer because it was smaller than the Daedalus class warships and with no visible flight pods, those ships where designed to support ground forces and anti-fighter screens. To that end, they had only one beam weapon but more missiles tubes and rail guns. It also had powerful conventional cannons and space to ground missiles, which could destroy targets on the ground. The science vessel was the same size of a Daedalus class ship and even had flight pods for launching research vessels, only the flight pods ran all the way down the length of the ship allowing them to carry larger research equipment. While designed for research the ship were armed with rail guns, which would allow protection from fighters and other small fighters.

As the ships headed up into space to join the other ships already up there the people on the ground were able to watch an airshow put on by the all the aircraft. Overall, it was an important day for Earth and marked the half waypoint of the eight-year plan to build up the forces.

**Within months the six large ship yards where complete and the construction began on the next group of ships on Valhalla.** However these ships where not the massive battleships or carriers but were the Hadrian Class Construction ship which was the equal length wise of both the carrier and battleship class but far easier to build. The ship was designed to be split into two a large engine room and thrusters in the back and a flight system in the front with two corridors just large enough for two men to walk side by side ran between the two points. These parts would only count for only a tenth of the ship's size the rest was just a flat deck between the two. The deck was actually set up to attach items to both the top and bottom side of the deck for easier deployment in space. The ships would be first of the massive ships out of the docks since they would be easier to make and be key for the rapid deployment of the Defense stations which currently sat in pieces in storage waiting for deployment in space.

**It took another 18 months but the six Hadrian class Construction ships where launched and they began their mission to deploy the defense stations around plants which the people of Earth claimed or have selected for colonization.** The class was named after Roman emperor which constructed the famous wall which protected Roman controlled southern England and the ships would be tasked to put the satellites in place as fixed positions to defend Earth and other planets. Since the Hadrian class had no weapons what so ever at least a single BC-303 was assigned to defend each ship while they were working. Most of Daedalus class warships considered it a break from either the missions of discovery or the constant military campiagnes in the Pegasus against the Wraith or the Lucien alliance back in the Milky Way. The first couple of "guard dog" duty as the Daedalus crews began calling it was actually fun since they had to sit within Earth's own solar system while the satellites where built. This meant they could watch almost live TV coming from Earth. However once the fourteen stations where in place for the defense of Earth the crew lost live TV and had begun to deal with hours of floating in empty space with nothing to do but wait. Since the IAO wanted to assure the public that they where safe when they told the Earth about the Stargate. The plan was for the 14 larger manned defense station in Earth's system each capable of taking out a Hive ship with a single blast they wanted literal hundreds of smaller unmanned sensory stations designed to monitor at long range for any ships or objects which could be a threat to Earth. The master plan was to place these stations everywhere so that Earth could monitor the movement of every ship in the galaxy but that was decades away from getting done. The current plan was to set the network around Earth and then Valhalla followed by any other planets they would colonize.

Maybe once they got more ships they could get it done faster but the larger bays where currently busy building the first five battleships and the first carrier. The six ships would be roughly the same size and would be just under 1,500 meters and would the largest ships ever put into space by Earth. The schedule called for them to be done six months before the unmasking and they would be the crown jewels for that day.

"How are we doing?" inquired General Raj-Singh as he took a tour of the construction site, the massive ships were starting to take shape but they were still at least two years away from finishing.

"Everything goes well General." Confirmed the site commander

"So no issues at all?" inquired General Raj-Singh not totally believing an operation this large could go on without any problems.

"We had a minor issue with some parts for the British Battleship Britannia but nothing that wasn't solved quickly enough," reported the site commander "All the ships are basically the same so the crews know what they are doing."

"I see." said General Raj-Singh as he looked at the massive ships wishing that his nation was getting one of them, but they wouldn't be getting one until at least the third batch, Australia and Brazil would have one before India. The political leaders had given up that for having their civilians be among the first through the gate to colonize a world. For his crowed country that was worth more than any warship and his nation could trade the debt, they had to get one like China had done to get their hands on the second US Battleship. Their ship the Long Chun which translated as Spring Dragon was sitting beside the British Britannia and the Russian Kursk. The last three ships where the French battleship Napoleon and the two American ships the battleship Missouri and the American Aircraft carrier Yorktown where in the distance. These massive ships where the center piece of the unveiling of the Stargate. Since Atlantis had left Earth to return to the Pegasus Galaxy to be the headquarters for the fight against the Wraith, these ships where going to be the symbol of the strength Earth now had.

"Is there anything else I can help you with General?" inquired the Site Commander

"No, I am going to walk around the site and look at a few things myself, make sure your on time." explained the General as the Site commander nodded his head.

"Very well sir, but I can assure you that we are on time and will make our deadline." Explained the Commander as the General walked away as he began his unofficial tour of the giant ships. Each Battleship was going to be just over 1,500 meters long, 500 meters wide and 200 meters tall, the carrier was slightly longer and wider but not as tall. Each ship was about four times the size of the new US Navy Super Aircraft carrier class which was currently patrolling the world sea. The ship would carry some of the most powerful weapons developed yet, these weapons where not just limited to Asgard beam weapons but their own version of the ancient drone system. The carrier would carry almost three hundred aircraft in multiple flight decks, which could be launched into battle. If everything went according to plan all six warships would be launch and finished with their first shake down deployments within ten days of the masking of the Stargate program to the world.

"General Raj-Singh." yelled an aid as he pulled up to him in an American Humvee.

"Yes, Lieutenant," Stated General Raj-Singh to the South African solider, as the general in charge of all forces on Valhalla he had soldiers from every nation who was part of the Stargate Program under his command.

"Sir, we have been trying to reach you." Stated the Lieutenant "Project Noah just reported in and they finished early with phase four and report that they are moving onto phase five."

"I see." confirmed General Raj-Singh knowing that Project Noah was not anything of any real military importance but was still under his command. Project Noah was settling animal species, which are highly threatened on Earth to Valhalla so ensure their survival. When they first started the program, the main issue was getting enough breading animals from Earth without making them vanish on Earth. Then do to some lucky break it was discovered that when the Asgard had first arrived at Earth they had scanned the DNA and neural patterns of over 500 mating pairs of over 2500 different earth species. Apparently, this was all in an attempt to find a cure for their cloning issue. From the reports they knew it was highly unlikely that they find it in animals but they did the research anyway just in case. It did not help the Asgard but using the Asgard cloning technology they now heath stocks of animals which were on the brink on earth. Just two weeks ago, he had taken his twin daughters to see a herd of over fifty African Elephants and almost the same number of Rhinos moving across the large grasslands on the second land mass. "Remind me Phase 5 what is that?"

"They are finishing up with land animals and are now moving on to sea life," explained the Solider "They are going to start cloning blue whales next week."

"And the animals are doing good?" inquired the General

"Better than good, apparently some of them are already having offspring, it is going better than planned." reported the soldier "The tree huggers on Earth will be surely happy when they find out about this program."

**A few kilometers away from General Raj-Singh the oldest person on the planet was sitting in of all places a Starbucks, he was holding onto his cup of green tea with two wrinkling hands.** A wooden cane rested across his lap as he waited for his grandson's family. He turned his gaze out the window at the city which looked very similar to the his home city of Seoul but yet very different. Yes there was cars and bus traveling down the wide roads but there was a lot more construction vehicles and even more people in military uniforms and some of them where Chinese's. His blood boiled a little as he watched a young Chinese officer walk by the window in full uniform. He knew he should not hate the young man he was not even born when some Chinese's soldier had shot him in the hip during the Battle of Onjong way back in 1950 when he had been a 17-year-old private. Then again, that bullet caused him to walk with a cane for over fifty years. Luckily walking with a cane had not prevented him from become a famous architect and even a professor in his field.

That was why he was on a different planet drinking tea in a Starbucks; he was sort of a mentor of sort to the dozens of architect groups, which were running projects all over the growing city.

"Simply beautiful." said Yu Jai Hong as he looked out the window at the main project going up. It was a massive skyscraper, which would put even the Khailifa tower in Dubai to shame. Then again, they did not have access to Ancient building technology or designs. It was going to be the Headquarters of all military forces on the planet and nearby parts of space.

"Yes, it is sir." said a server as he took away an old cup left by another customer, Yu Jai Hong looked over the server shoulder at the blank TV screen. "Do you want a me to change the TV to the news?"

"Yes, please." confirmed Yu Jai Hong as server turned on the TV and was instantly rewarded with the news. Yu Jai Hong struggled as he watched the American CNN broadcast from Earth, thanks to the network of broadcast stations which where transmitting it from Earth with only a short delay. Only live news and sports where currently broadcast lived but once more stations went up more stations would go live.

The news was what he expected to see, there was maybe ten minutes about the joint British and Chinese offensive in Central Africa to put down warlords, which had been attacking some UN relief agencies before going back to the main story. Two months earlier the big Earthquake had finally hit California, a nearly 8.0 quake had hit the state hard, and it dominated the headlines. The US military had recalled forces from global operations to focus on the recovery forcing China, Russia and the other nations to take up more of the burden of preparing the world for the unmasking of the Stargate. The reporter was talking about all the new technology which where key in saving lives after the quake including new technology, which detected heartbeats.

"Great Grandpa!" yelled a little voice as Yu Jai Hong turned toward the door only to see his six-year-old great granddaughter running toward him.

"Hello my little Princess." said Yu Jai Hong with a smile as he pulled out a small piece of Candy from his pocket. Fast as she could, she grabbed it out of his hand and stuck it in her mouth.

"Grandfather I wished you wouldn't do that." said his Grandson as he and his wife moved toward the elderly man. Like his late son, his grandson had followed him in the field of architecture and had become very well-known across South Korea and Southern California. "She isn't supposed to have sweats before lunch."

"Well what are great grandfathers for but to help the little ones break a few rules." Laughed Yu Jai Hong

"Great Grandpa guessed what Daddy got the job." stated his little princess "He gets to make Elsa's Castle in the new park."

"Really." laughed the elder architect who had already seen the blue-prints. Part of the whole unveiling of the Stargate, which the Americans had pushed for the most, was getting private companies to start adding technology from the gate to public life. So key companies already knew about the gate and where making items from it Apple, Microsoft and others all had access. One of those was Disney who had selected by the member nations to lead a group to work out a cultural program to help explain Earth culture to new cultures they would meet. One of the side bounces was that there would soon be a Disney World Valhalla for the millions of people, which would likely join the people already here.

"Yes, it is going to be amazing!" said the little girl in the high pitch voice she was known for. "Will you take me and my new sister when it is done?"

"New sister?" asked Yu Jai Hong as he looked at his grandson and his half-Korean half-American wife.

"We just found out we are expecting." explained his grandson's wife as his great Grand Daughter began singing to herself "But she is more excited about Frozen II then she is about having a sister or a brother."

"Let it go…let it go." sung the six year old to herself as her great grandfather smiled at her.

**While a six year old was singing to the movie, Frozen men and women in flight suits sat in a large hanger at a nearby base.** Hanging from the ceiling of the hanger where flags of thirty-five countries with a large royal blue flag with a golden pyramided shape of Earth in the center. In addition to the symbol of Earth, it had faded image of the Stargate, it had been adopted as a unifying symbol for the militaries of Earth. The pilots even had the flag on their flight suits with their own national flags right below it. In the center of the hanger sat a F-302 Eagle fighter with the pilots sitting there before the aircraft which none of them had flown yet.

"Attention." yelled a young officer as the men and women stood up. In this group there where pilots from ten different nations and this was a special group. In this group was mostly made out of pilots from demonstration squadron which normally preformed at airshows teams such the American Blue Angels, the British Red Arrows, Russian Knights and the black Eagles from South Korea where all in attendance.

"Alright listen up!" ordered the African American US air force officer Captain Winters. "First of all welcome to Valhalla. I have seen action in two different galaxies and I have fifteen confirmed kills to my name most of them coming in operations in Pegasus galaxy. Now normally we would just focus on training you all for combat against but we have an additional goal here. The brass of your nations wants you to be able to put on a show with these aircraft when the time is right. So, once you master this aircraft and learn how to dogfight in space we will focus on designing shows that can be performed for the public. Do you all understand?"

"Yes, sir!" yelled all the voices at the same time.

"Good." said Winters as he nodded toward another man who stood by the hanger door. He pushed a button and the hanger door opened to show dozens of F-302 sitting under the sun, each one of them had been painted to match the color patterns of their performance squadrons back on Earth. "Now let's get to work."

**Well I hope you like the second chapter of this story, the setup is almost done next chapter is the first time that the colonials will make an appearance. I have also put a little hint about where this planet is in the Battlestar universe. Now I would like to thank everyone who reviewed and I ask that you keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3 Contact and Missteps**

Space ripped open in a flash of light as a small vessel, the vessel was less than 30 feet long and while other variants of the vessel carried heavy weapons this one did. This one was equipped with twine automatic cannons and ship-to-ship missiles; most of the ship was dedicated to DRADUS sweeps and wireless severance. One of the other main job of this version of Colonial Raptor was mapping of systems under the control of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol.

"Helo, any wireless traffic?" inquired the pilot to the copilot/Electronic Countermeasure Officer Karl "Helo" Agathon who sat at his controls behind her.

"No." reported Lieutenant Karl Agathon as Colonial Raptor 312 from the Battlestar Galactica moved through space toward a cluster of asteroids, which marked the border between Colonial and Cylon controlled space. The border between the 12 tribes and their self-created demon of their existence had been established thirty-nine years earlier and since the signing of the treaty, no one had seen one of the robot Cylons. Every so often, a civilian ship traveling near the border would claim to pick up an unknown contact on the other side of the boarder but besides that no sign.

"I wouldn't believe so; the Cylons haven't been seen in what? 40 years?" asked the pilot Lieutenant Sharon "Boomer" Valerii as she guided the Raptor toward the mission. It was a rather simple mission to go to the asteroid cluster and sit for 12 hours in an attempt to listen to any wireless broadcast, which could be Cylons. Both of them thought it was a stupid mission since even if they did pick up any wireless traffic it would encrypted and breaking a Cylon computer code was almost as likely as Zeus himself appearing in front of them.

"Frak we are so far out I can't even get fleet wireless traffic yet alone a civilian station for music," cursed Helo as they moved into the asteroid field before coming in for a landing on a random hunk of rock on the outer edge of the cluster.

"Told you we wouldn't get anything, I did this post last year and we got nothing," laughed Sharon as she powered down the Raptor and took off her helmet. She checked her systems, which took a few moments before speaking again. "Tell me you brought the cards or else this is going be a very long day?"

Karl never got a chance to say another word as suddenly a blueish light filled the cockpit window as both turned toward the source however, a nearby asteroid prevented a view however it gave them a perfect view of the strange ship, which came out from behind the asteroid. The ship had to be far away from them for it to be hidden behind the asteroid. It seemed to be a gun metal grey with a long neck coming out of a thicker base. Out of the thicker base came four small crafts from what both veterans guessed had to be some kind of flight pod. The crafts separated into pairs before turning and burning in what looked to be a protective combat patrol.

"What the frak, is that?" asked Karl as turned toward his computer. He was getting some wireless traffic now but he could not make heads or tails of it. They were coded in a way he had never seen before and his computer database could not match it either. Seconds later, there was another flash of blue light, which came from behind the unknown ship.

"Second contact!" yelled Sharon as a second ship larger than the first came out from the behind the first unknown. This one was massive almost three fourths the length of the Galactica but it was no way as tall or as wide. It reminded them both of a flying sky scrapper with a rectangle shape which narrowed to a point at the front. Before the two colonial officers eyes the top and bottom of the vessel opened and out to show what appeared to be objects of some kind sitting on a flat deck. The deck took up most of the ship as if it was nothing more than a giant hanger with a bridge at the front and engines in the back.

"What the frak?" asked Sharon as she double-checked to make sure that the cameras were rolling. The powerful cameras were now recording everything as some of the large objects on the second ship lifted off the deck.

"Cylons?" asked Karl as his mind jumped to the only thing he could think of that would explain what they were seeing. The ships looked nothing like the twin disks sitting on top of each other like the primary Cylon vessel during the last war, it didn't even look like the second version which looked more like two letter Ys attached to each other. In fact these ships looked more in line with Colonial warships then anything close to what the Cylons used but they were not colonial.

"I have no fraken idea, but who else could it be?" stuttered Sharon as she trembled a bit in fear as she noted the position of the two ships on the Dradus system. The ships were just on the Cylon side of the boarder but it was only by about two hundred yards and the smaller fighter patrol was on their side of the boarder.

**Unknown to the two pilots this wasn't the Cylons but the Tau'ri defense vessel the Daedalus class warship the HMS Ark Royal on mission to protect one of the newest ships in the ever growing fleet.** The Leonardo Da Vinci was one of the six Hadrian class constructor, which was designed to carry parts for the new defense satellites and items too large for the Stargate to transport. The Da Vinci was unarmed so at all times at least one warship was assigned to watch out for the ship and its small crew.

"Anything on sensors?" asked the Ark Royal's captain as the London born Royal Navy officer sat on the bridge with a tea cup and platter in his hands. Captain Ian Taylor never dreamed that when he first signed up to protect his island nation by joining the Navy that he would be out in space.

"Nothing Captain Taylor." reported another officer as captain took another drink of tea already counting down the hours left that he and his crew would have to play babysitter. This mission while important was rather boring compared to exploring new parts of the galaxy or doing battle with monsters such as the Wraith.

"Sir, this is our last satellite placement before we head back to Earth for the unmasking correct?" inquired the second officer.

"Correct." Confirmed Captain Taylor as he looked down at his chair mounted computer pad "We actually got our assigned stop yesterday, while the Brittiania is showing off along with the other capital ships at the UN before going to London, we will make our appearance in York."

"Could be worst and where are the other big boys going?" inquired the officer

"From my understanding they will appear in New York before going to their capitals, the carrier in San Francisco, or was it LA one of the two I forget." Reported the Captain as he thought about it, the final orders where likely going out to multiple Generals for a general call up all military forces to secure that everything remains peaceful. Other nations not in the alliance would likely call up their own military not really knowing why but only responding to everyone else calling up theirs. The October 1st 2020 meeting of the United Nations was going to be a landmark event in human history but before that day they had to finish the mission here.

"So did your son enjoy your trip to Valhalla Disney?" inquired the Captain to the second officer who he knew had three children between the ages of twelve and six.

"Yes, sir but I loved the fact that we didn't have to wait hours to get on a ride." Laughed the officer

"Well that will not last long, I saw the estimates of people moving off Earth to Valhalla." added the Captain as he remembered the outlook at the number of people which would likely be moving. At first most of them would be from China and India but a strong number from Western countries as well. Since it would be too difficult to move all those people to the SGC before coming to Valhalla the plan was to transport the Gate to them and then depart them from their home nations. "They predict over 400 million people in the first five years, which is four percent of the population of Earth or about the same as the population of the United States and another 400 to 200 million in the next five years depending on colonization of other worlds."

"Damn no wonder they are building all those empty cities on Valhalla, right now." added the second officer "They will not be empty for long but how are they going to employ all those people?"

"Building ships." stated Captain Taylor as he remembered talking with some of the other ship captains. It was an open secret among that the IOA plan was to build up a 600 plus strong fleet of warships within twenty years, which was about double the size of the curtain United States Navy however it was going to be spread out over multiple nations. At first, he thought this to be an impossible idea but then he had talked with one of his old primary school mates which was assigned to the British army engineer core assigned to Valhalla. According to him, the major problem was getting the raw material out of the ground and refining it not the actual construction of the ships. The people building the ships where very efficient at putting everything together but without the raw material they could not do much.

**Back on the Colonial Raptor, the two scared colonial pilots had finally figured out what they had to do. **They kept the main gun video tape rolling as they zoomed in with the smaller cameras, they were trying to get images of these ships from every position possible but they still had no clue what they were.

"I think we should get going, like right now." stated Helo

"Good Idea, who knows when they will send some raiders in to check it out." stated Boomer as she slowly lifted the Raptor off the rock hoping that whatever those ships where didn't detect them. She quickly spun up the FTL and the moment it was ready she hit it causing a small flash of light.

**Due to all the small asteroids floating in the field, the sensors systems on the Ark Royal never ID the Colonial Raptor lifting off the floating rock as a ship**. It did pick up the energy spike from the jump drive but the radar operator passed it off as a false reading and went back to work. One of the 302 pilots flying combat barrier patrol did see the flash of light but only out of the corner of his eye and turned toward the source but seeing nothing moved on believing he had just imagined it.

**Raptor 312 appeared a just far enough away to be outside the powerful long-range scanners of the Ark Royal**. The Raptor was well within the DRADIS system range of the ship which had launched it only twenty minutes earlier. Deep inside the ship was Combat Information Center or CIC from this centurial location the Commander of the Colonial Battlestar Galactica could direct the ship under his or her command in war and in peace. The Galactica had not seen any major action since the Cylon war almost 40 years earlier, the only times the Battlestar's massive guns had been fired was in training and soon they would never fire again.

"Commander Raptor 312 has returned," stated the DRADIS officer a young Junior Lieutenant Anastasi "Dee" Dualla as her Commander, Commander William "Bill" Adama looked up at her from the map table in the center of the room. A viper pilot veteran of the Cylon war the old warrior was looking forward to his retirement in just under nine months.

"Sir, that raptor was due back for at least seven hours." stated the senior officer of the watch Lieutenant Felix Gaeta as the young up and coming officer reported information that the Cylon-War veteran Viper pilot already knew.

"Get Boomer on the horn." ordered Adama as he reached for the wired broadcaster located in the side of the table "Let's hope she has a good reason for this."

The war veteran waited a few moments while Dee manually switched the wireless broadcaster over to him. Unlike all the newer ships in the Colonial Navy, the Galactica had no networked computers on board she had been designed that way since the Cylons had shown themselves more than capable of hacking computer networks during the war. The newer ships had systems which was supposed to stop even the best hacking attack but the old war dog didn't trust them and since Galactica was nine months away from becoming a museum the high command saw no reason to put her in the list for upgrades.

"Raptor 312 this is Galactica Actual, did you forget something Boomer?" inquired Commander Adama, he expected to hear about a problem with the scanning systems or maybe with another key system however he got an answer he nor anyone was not expecting.

"Sir, contact I say again we have contact with what we believe to be two Cylon ships." reported Boomer as Adama and everyone else on the CIC eyes widened a bit, that wasn't something they had expected. "We need Combat information teams standing by to print out photos to confirm."

"Get Combat Information to the hanger." ordered Adama knowing that Combat Information was nothing more than two junior officers with a portable printer and a laptop computer so old it was laughable. Together they would download and print up anything captured on the Raptors cameras and dradis systems. Once they had that done they would make four copies. One would stay on Galactica the others would board Raptors for the jumps to the nearest battle group and two raptors would take them all the way to Colonial command back in the colonies.

"Where is the nearest battle group?" inquired Adama to his watch officer who quickly studied star map located on the center table.

"Here sir." reported Gaeta as he pointed toward a spot on the map "Pegasus Task group three Battlestars plus seven other ships, not sure about their class. Under Rear Admiral Helena Cain I believe."

"Alright, I am going to go down to the hanger and see this possible Cylon sighting myself. Prepare the ship for possible jump, If it looks good I will take this information to Admiral Cain myself, so prepare the ship for a jump." ordered Adama as Gaeta blinked, a jump was something they had trained for but hadn't done in two years. "Is something wrong?"

"Sir standard orders are to send a Raptor if there is any sightings." countered Gaeta

"Yes, but if these ships are Cylon then we are supposed to organize a strike against them and that would be easier if we are all together." countered Adama as Gaeta lowered his head giving into the logic of that, even as his Commander started walking away. "And someone get my XO out of bed."

"Yes, sir." confirmed Gaeta

**Back with the Ark Royal everything was going on schedule, the first couple of pieces had lifted off the deck of the Da Vinci and with the help of small retro rockets where being moved into place.** Each part was designed to fit together sort of like a giant Lego construction set, all the pieces fit together and then a small team would beam onboard and finish the final attachments. Unlike the larger defense class Kusanagi Class Defense station which where almost ¾ of a Kilometer long they were assembling a class C station which was a lot smaller had no defense system besides a cloaking system which would hid it from almost everyone.

The Kusanagi class defense station had three sub classes based on what their main role was. The Class A was almost ¾ of a kilometer long with a beam weapon capable of punching through any ship within two hits. Those stations had a bay for launching fighters and drone weapons along with anti-air defenses. The next class was the Class B which was smaller with less weapons but was more versatile easier to produce and faster to assemble. Finally, the smallest was the class C which main job was not to fight but to serve as lookouts and broadcasts stations. With their powerful sensors and cloaking systems, they could monitor large parts of space unseen and unnoticed.

"Anything on sensors?" asked Captain Taylor board out his mind.

"We are getting fait radio traffic but we can't make out what it is at the moment." Reported an officer

"Radio traffic?" inquired the Captain as he moved toward the broadcast station "I thought this part of space had no of advance life?"

"According to the Asgard Database it is and when we inquired about this space to the Jaffa they had no world's here." responded the officer as she pulled up information about the area on her computer. "Combine with the fact that none of the dials to this area of space done by the SGC connect to anything lead command to declare it void of life."

"And yet we are getting radio traffic, isn't that a clear sign of life?" inquired the Captain as the officer blinked "The Asgard where amazing but they were not God we can't take everything they wrote down as Holy Scripture."

"Should we move toward the source so that we could get a better idea of what is going on?" inquired the officer as the Captain shock his head.

"No, we need to protect the Da Vinci but once the work is done we should look into it. In the mean time I want fighters on standby and bring the ship up to level two alert." order the Captain as the officer nodded his head. "Is the communication systems on the satellite up yet so that we can contact Earth in real time?"

"Should be sir, hold on…" said the officer as he moved to another station where a lower officer was manning a computer to confirmed it.

"Yes, sir we have communication with Earth." Said the officer in front of the computer before deciding to cover her ass "May be a little static but other than that it should work."

"A little static never hurt anyone." confirmed the Captain as he sat down in his chair and tapped a small computer screen, which was attached to the armchair. The Ship's seal disappeared and within a few moments, a man's face appeared.

"Captain Ian Taylor HMS Ark Royal for General O'Neill." reported the Captain as the man who was sitting behind a desk in Washington DC nodded his head.

"Please hold for one moment." said the man as the screen went to another seal, this one showing a Stargate with the upside down V with a circle on top symbol which had become the symbol of the Tau'ri. It didn't take long before the face of another man this one dressed in an American Air Force blue dress uniform appeared. He had salt and pepper hair had become more salted since leaving the SGC but there was strength within him.

"Captain Taylor how are things going out there?" inquired one of the greatest heros in Earth's history even if only a handful of people knew about him at the moment.

"Sir, we may have a small situation," reported Captain Taylor to the head of Home World Command.

"What kind of situation?" inquired General O'Neill as he put down his pen which he had been using for paper work.

"My ship is currently guarding the Da Vinci while they put up a defense satellite for the outer rim of the Valhalla defense line and we received some radio traffic. The radio traffic is coming from an area of space which according to the Asgard database is supposed to be empty of life advanced." Reported Captain Taylor as General O'Neill raised an eyebrow.

"What kind of radio traffic?" inquired O'Neill

"It's too weak to tell could be a highly advanced culture or it could be the first broadcast of a culture who just discovered radio." admitted Captain Taylor "However we will not know unless we move closer to the source."

"We can't leave the Da Vinci unprotected it is one of only six construction ships we have." stated the General

"Yes, sir I totally agree which is why with your permission once the satellite it finished and the Da Vinci heads to join the fleet we head toward the source and find out what it is." Advised the Captain, the Da Vinci could handle the journey in hyperspace back to Valhalla by itself. "Should only take 90 minutes at most to move closer to the source of the radio broadcast to understand what it is. Then we will know what we have on our flank for sure."

"Agreed but make sure your back at Valhalla to join the fleet heading to Earth. I don't want to explain to the British PM why one of his ships didn't show up for the unveiling of the Stargate program." ordered General O'Neill

"Yes, sir." confirmed Captain Taylor the screen went black and the Captain checked his watch. He now had orders but he couldn't do anything for at least another five hours when the Da Vinci would be finished. "What are they serving for lunch today?"

"Baked Cod with Chips." reported the nearest officer "However we can get something different you want."

"No, I'll eat with the men today," ordered the Captain wishing it time for lunch already.

**Meanwhile outside of sensor range from the Ark Royal another Commanding officer was enjoying her lunch in her private study.** She had her long dark hair was pulled back into a pony tail and her dark blue uniform was in perfect condition like always. While she ate her meal, a traditional Tauron meal which was heavy on the red meat and potatoes she looked over the timeframe for her ships overhaul back at the Scorpion Shipyards. Her first ship was due in to port in three months with her own command ship the Mercury class Battlestar Pegasus being the last one in nine months. A knock at her door caused her to lift her head from the paperwork and toward the door.

"Enter." ordered the Rear Admiral as the hatch opened up as her XO Jurgen Belzen entered the office. It was rare for the XO to interrupt her meals since it was normally the only time apart from sleeping when Cain was not working in one way or another.

"Rear Admiral Cain, we may have a situation," reported Colonel Belzen as the Admiral looked up at him with her dark eyes that made Special Forces marines run in fear. "The Battlestar Galactica has jumped a few hundreds kilometers to our front."

"The Galactica is supposed to be at least a jump away from our us." stated Cain with a grown as she placed down her knife and glared at Belzen in anger "So tell me who is in command over there and why is he here?"

"Commander Adama is there and according to his broadcast he wants to come onboard to speak to you personally." reported Belzen as he took a deep breath and looked down at his paper again. "He says one of his raptors sited two possible and I stress possible Cylon ships right on their side of the board in section P145."

Admiral Cain's eyes widened as she grabbed her knife and stabbed the wooden table letting the point of the razor sharp blade just sit there.

"Cylons?" asked Admiral Cain as she looked at the knife "I knew that they would return."

"Possible Cylons, the Commander reports two unknown ships on the boarder but who else could be." corrected Belzen "His raptor got some pictures and wants to come onboard to present them to you."

"Get him here now! I want every Commander in my fleet here as well!" ordered Admiral Cain with a force, which caused Belzen to snap to attention to carry out his orders.

**Just under twenty minutes the aged warrior of Commander Adama moved through the corridors of the much more advanced Pegasus.** Unlike his Galactica this battlestar didn't smell of mold mainly because it didn't have decades of build up from drippy water pipes in the wall. The two marines who stood guard in full combat uniforms in front of the Admiral's office snapped to attention as he neared before opening the door. He entered to find the commanders of all ten ships in the fleet already standing around the table with Admiral Cain at the head.

"Admiral Cain." said Adama as he saluted his superior who returned the saluted at once.

"Commander Adama, Admiral Cain tells us you have a Cylon sighting?" inquired a much younger woman.

"A possible sighting." corrected Adama as he moved to stand at the other head of the table across from Admiral Cain. Quickly he unrolled a large map which had been printed up only recently onboard the Galactica. It covered maybe half the table and was sectioned off with thin lines, which formed a grid, however an image was clear. It showed two strange ships with some asteroids covering parts of the image. "This was taken just over 90 minutes ago by Raptor 312 which was in a standard passive recon sweep in an asteroid belt a single jump from this location."

"90 minutes why so long?" inquired another Commander "This should have been brought to use at once."

"Galactica's printers are very old and very slow. Also I wanted to make sure that we were not dealing with a drifting hulk of some kind, the two pilots where not alive during the last war and their story was unbelievable at first." explained Adama as the other officers nodded their heads.

"Understandable." defended the second oldest person at the table "One of my rookie pilots thought an old Cylon raider was a UFO because half the thing was missing."

"Your rookie believes in UFO?" laughed another Officer, belief in life outside of humanity was seen as laughable in the colonies. This was because scared scrolls said the universe was made for humanity by the Lords of Kobol and in over forty years of space travel they had never made contact with any.

"This isn't a wretch of any kind." said Admiral Cain as she leaned over the table looking at the two ships, the ships that belonged to her enemy.

"No, Sir and they appear to be setting something up just on their side of the boarder." Stated Adama "The pilots reported that the larger of the two ships opened up and large pieces of something likely a space station began moving off the deck."

"They are be setting up a launching point for an invasion." stated Cain with such force that it took the others aback "They did this during the last war, set up a defense station from which they could have their Basestars fall back to when threatened and from which they could resupply from. Look from this location they are only three jumps away from our homes."

"Which is why stations like those where banded within a single jump of the board in the treaty." Noted another officer "Aside from the conference station we don't have any space stations within a jump of the boarder and neither should the Cylons."

"Alright I want this hit and hit now," ordered Cain

"Sir we should inform high command first." advised another Commander

"No, it is well within the confines of the treaty to destroy any station of any kind by the boarder and that is what we are going to do." explained Cain "Send a Raptor to the high command with word of this and our actions, and then we will move into combat."

"Madam there may be a slight problem." reported one of her three Battlestar commanders as Cain's head snapped toward him like an angry big cat "We have a News crew from Caprica on the Orion it will be hard to get them to leave without raising an alarm."

"Why do we have a film crew on one of my Battlestars?" snapped Cain

"High command orders trying to drum up news stories before the next budget cuts start happening." explained the commander of the Orion.

"It may be for the best let them see the threat the Cylons still pose to us." offered up another as Admiral Cain put her hand under her chin as she thought about the point.

"I agree." ordered Cain

"It would look bad if the news reporters are taken out by a lucky missile if things go bad, maybe put them in a Raptor near the rear." offered up another Commander "That way they can jump away if needed."

"Two Cylon warships against four Battlestars and seven support vessels we shouldn't have any issues." stated Cain as she brushed the worry aside "And it looks like one of the ships is a support vessel likely not even arm."

"We should send in a Raptor for a scouting mission to make sure everything is the same we don't want to jump into a trap." offered Adama

"I wise move," confirmed another Commander

"No we can't alert them to us," countered Rear Admiral Cain "Once you all return to your ships have your crews go to condition 1 and then we will jump into combat, launch everything you have. Galactica as the oldest ship you will take the rear while the Pegasus takes the lead if I should fall then as the most experience senior officer command will pass to you, Commander Adama."

"Yes, Madam." confirmed Adama as she start to lay out her attack plan not know who she was really attacking.

**Yes, this story is taking place before the fall of the 12 tribes of Kobol by a couple of months. I hope you liked this chapter, I am sorry for the delay of a couple of days but I forgot to say in my last chapter I was going to a cousin's wedding so I would be late in posting. Now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75**


	4. Chapter 4

**Important Note: **

**First thank you for all the reviews, I have had a few people ask me why I have bold part in the story; it is a rather simple reason. In some of my other stories, people have said they had trouble whenever I had a scene change so I put in the bold part so that people could tell. Another thing was people asking me for me to get a beta however; I had too many bad experiences with Betas to trust them. In addition, I use fanfiction to help with my grammar and the like since the school missed a reading disability until I was in the 3rd grade and then did nothing to help. Now enough about that and enjoy the story.**

**Chapter 4 Contact and Fire  
**

Commander Adama moved down the corridors of the Galactica having only just returned from his meeting with Vice Admiral Cain and the rest of the leaders of the task force. Over the course of half an hour, they had planned the attack on the Cylon ships and the position each ship would be in the formation. It had taken some time to organize the fighter squadron locations since if they Cylons followed their traditional battle doctrine they would try to over whelm them with fighters. Admiral Cain had ordered no nukes use without the permission of either herself or the next person in command if she is unable to keep command. Since there was only two ships the massive guns of the Battlestars and support ships would be enough.

Adama walked into the CIC to see that his XO had gotten out of his cups long enough to put on a clean uniform and report to duty.

"Colonel Tigh." said Adama to his old friend

"Commander Adama, I heard we have some busyness," stated Saul Tigh as he looked toward his old war buddy. The tall balding man was dressed in an almost matching uniform of Adama only with the rank of Colonel instead of Commander.

"Yes we do," confirmed Adama as he lied out the combat plan when he finished Saul nodded his head in understanding. The plan was for the four Battlestars to make a sort of diamond shape with the support ships protecting the flanks. As the oldest ship, the Galactica would be near the center of the fleet and would be the ship that any damaged vipers or raptors would use as a landing site.

"We can do this." confirmed Saul "I'll get the guns loaded and the pilots ready."

"Good." confirmed Adama he knew that while Saul enjoyed his drinks more than a little too much once he was given a task he would carry it out.

"Alright listen up!" yelled Saul as he began moving around the room "I want condition one set across the ship, load all guns with anti-ship rounds and get all the Vipers and Raptors ready for combat launch."

"Yes, sir." confirmed Lieutenant Felix Gaeta as the third in command went to carry out his orders.

For a moment, Adama just stood there and watched as the CIC crew went to work carrying out their jobs just as they had been trained to do. All over the ship, his crew was running to their stations, the heavy shells where moving up from the armory toward the guns while the crew was loading the vipers and raptors with weapons. The pilots where rushing toward their ready rooms not totally knowing what was happened but waiting for the orders.

"Sir, condition one is set across the ships." reported Lieutenant Gaeta "Shall I inform the fleet that we are ready."

"We are still getting the pilots their orders," countered Saul "We need another ten minutes at least."

"Telling Cain to wait is like telling a charging bull to stop and expect it to happen. We will have to give the birds their orders on the fly." countered Adama as he picked up his ships broadcast systems. "Now hear this, this ship and along with the other ships under Admiral Cain's command are heading into a combat situation against at least two ships we believe are Cylon Vessels who are setting up a station of some kind on our boarder."

Adama's voice boomed all over the ship as everyone stopped and listened to the voice of their Commander.

"Now, we do not know what we will face but we are the shield and sword of our home and we will defend them to the last bullet and if needed our very lives." stated Adama "You all know your job, just do it and believe on everyone else to do their jobs. We will jump into the combat zone and then launch all our Vipers and Raptors, our air wings have been assigned to defend fleet while the air wings from the other Battlestars take care of the enemy. Now let's go hunting."

"Nicely done Bill." stated Saul as the two friends stood across from each other with the small map table between them.

"Spin up FTL, prepare to jump." ordered Adama as he prayed to the Lords of Kobol for protection and strength. Like all colonial warships the Galactica had two FTL drives, which allowed it to jump two times before the 33 minute cool down required, by law civilian ships could, only had a single FTL drive. "And inform the fleet that we are ready to jump."

"FTL ready the fleet is jumping in five…four…three...two…one." reported Gaeta

"Jump." ordered Adama as the old warship's FTL drive jumped along with all the ships in the fleet, they reappeared in a different part of space which was a lot like the one they just left only there was two strange ships and a half finished space station of some kind.

"Jump complete all ships are accounted for, two unknown ships and a station of some kind are 1,000 kilometers to our front and we have what appears to be a fighter patrol of four fighters 500 kilometers our starboard." reported Gaeta as the Dradus radar system picked up the ships in the system.

"Send Starbucks and her flight after those fighters, inform Admiral Cain that we are going to take care of those birds." ordered Adama.

**Down in the hanger bay a colonial front line space/aerial fighter was being loaded into the special launching tubes built into the sides of the ship.** The Viper mark VII was the latest addition of the Cylon War era Mark II Viper, a squadron of which was sitting on Caprica, which would someday be sitting in Galactica when she was turned into a museum. The diamond shaped fighter was armed mostly with heavy cannons and a few missiles.

"Let's get this show on the road!" yelled the most hotshot load mouth Viper on Galactica and likely the entire colonial fleet, Kira Thrace better known as Starbuck. She slipped on her helmet as she jumped into her cockpit sliding the hatch close. She checked the seals to make sure she had air both within her cockpit and her suit, within seconds she got the confirmation of the seals. Almost right after she finished the airlock behind her sealed, she looked up at the red light built into the tub.

"Athena, protect me and give me strength for this hunt." prayed Kira as the light turned green and her viper went shooting down the tube before ejecting out into space. She spun her viper around as she rocked in her seat to get in a spot she liked.

"Galactica Actual to Starbuck." came Adama's voice over her wireless.

"Starbucks here, Galactica." confirmed Starbucks

"Take Gold wing and hunt down possible Cylon raiders to our starboard but do not fire until weapon free orders are given." ordered Adama

"Understood Galactica." confirmed Starbucks as she banked her viper toward the targets "Alright Gold flight follow me."

Within moments the flight of Vipers followed her while the rest took up their own combat position and moved toward the unknown ships which sat in space. However there was something else in space, it looked like a some kind of cylinder shaped space station.

**The normally boring babysitting had suddenly changed as alarms filled the air as the men and women of the HMS Ark Royal rushed to combat stations.** Power had been automatically be transferred to the shield generators and the Asgard beam weapons, the first rounds on the rail guns were also chambered as they prepared to deal with any small aircraft and the missile tubes where opened and waiting for the captain to decide what type would be loaded.

"Report!" yelled Captain Taylor as he walked onto the bridge, he didn't have to wait for an answer he could see four ships all as large as one of their new Battleships approaching fast, flanking them on either side was seven smaller ships. The ships where in a V shape with the four larger ships making up a diamond shape lead and the others forming around it.

"Eleven unknown contacts four of them are as large as a Battleship others are smaller but all are larger than us. The four large ships are launching aircraft, the others are launching them as well not as many." reported the radar operator as he got more information "A lot of fighters in fact."

"How many?" inquired the Captain Taylor, he needed hard information.

"Sir, I have over 960 aircraft in the air just form the larger ships and about another 275 from the smaller ships." Reported the operator as the Captain Taylor nodded his head, 960 was a ton of aircraft but given the size of the ships and the number it was not surprising. That would be around 240 aircraft per ship and that would break down even more into around 10 squadrons of around 24 each.

"Tell the Da Vinci to finish up and run, move us into position between the unknowns and the station." ordered the Captain, the station was only about half finished and had no way to defend itself. Luckily it was an unmanned station which meant he could destroy it without any cost to human life. "Put F-302 on hot pad for launch and load missile tubes with those shotgun missiles as the Americans call it, prepare beam weapon for lock on the lead ship."

"Sir the unknown fighters are forming into attack wings." reported another officer

"Give me a total tactical scan of those ships." Ordered Captain Ian as he prepared to make first contact and hopefully prevent it from going forward.

**On the lead ship Admiral Cain stood on her station on the Battlestar Pegasus, the ships under her command had launched all the vipers and the raptors where preparing to launch.** To launch vipers on mass meant they had to open their flight pods which took some time and couldn't be avoided. Once they were in place they would show these Cylons the force of the Colonial Navy.

"Sir the smaller of the unknown ship is moving to a position in-between us and the larger ship." Reported the XO as the CIC became a hive of active. "There also seems to be a station of some kind which wasn't there before."

"Are they on our side of the boarder?" asked Admiral Cain

"The smaller ship just crossed the border when it moved into a defensive position." Reported the XO "However they haven't launched any Raiders, the only aircraft they have out are the four which were already out when we arrived. Galactica is sending a flight to take care of them."

"Good we need to have our forces ready to deal with the ship launched Raiders." reported Admiral Cain

"It is sort of strange that they haven't launched any raiders to deal with our vipers." Stated her XO

"The ship is small, likely they don't have many." Stated Cain "This was likely a black operation and they hopped we wouldn't notice."

"Admiral I have something on the wireless from the Cylon Ship." reported the wireless operator from her station.

"Cylons who want to talk?" asked the XO as he raised an eyebrow as a male voice came over the wireless.

"Unknown vessels this is Captain Ian Taylor of the Tau'ri defense vessel HMS Ark Royal please Identify yourself." said the male voice

"What the frak are Tau'ri?" asked the XO as Admiral Cain eyes narrowed as she grabbed her own wireless broadcaster.

"Tau'ri vessel Ark Royal this is Vice Admiral Cain of the Battlestar Pegasus of the 12 colonies of Kobol and commander of this battlegroup and your little trick isn't going to fool us Cylons so drop the Fraken Act." said Admiral Cain as her voice reached everyone who was listening on the wireless. "You have no right to be on our side and treaty states that besides the meeting station neither side can build a station within one jump of the boarder. You have violated that and we will make you pay."

"Vice Admiral we do not know of your people or these Cylons we are setting up a monitoring station for a planet we have colonized, nothing more we mean your people no harm. If we have entered your territory we apologize and if you would send a map of the area of space you claim we will avoid it in the future." Reported Captain Ian Taylor as looked at the tactical display, these "colonials" had launched even more aircraft, these seamed to be larger and likely served the same roles in combat as his own Owl shuttles. The combat scanners showed that each ship had a lot of firepower in the form of cannons but there was no sign of energy spikes which normally happened when shields where powered up. The four f-302 which had been on combat patrol when these ships appeared in flashes of light where now heading back to the ship taking a long route to avoid the capital ships but a squadron of fighters where in chasing them down. Given the current location, the two groups would likely meet.

"I will not hand anything over to Cylons." snapped Cain "Now either your ships leave now and we will destroy that station, it is a violation to have it so close to the boarder."

"Vice Admiral I cannot allow you to destroy the station we will take it down but we will not allow you access to our technology." stated Captain Taylor knowing that he would rather destroy it himself then hand it over. With a nod he told the radio operator to stop broadcasting "Get the construction ship out of here we can call him back if needed."

"You have no choice in that matter we will destroy it and if you get in our way we will destroy you Cylon." snapped Cain as the Battlestars moved ever closer to the Cylon ships, the plan was for them to turn so that they could be position to bring the most guns to bare on the ships.

"Admiral the larger of the ship is heading away from us, deeper into Cylon space." reported the DRADUS operator.

"We will have to let that one go." reported the XO of the Pegasus they both knew the treaty would allow them to destroy the station on the Cylon side of the boarder since it was a violation of the treaty but not the ship. Suddenly the larger ship disappeared from DRADUS and the CIC crew thought it had to have jumped but they soon got reports that made them even more confused.

"**What the Frak was that?" asked the hot shoot viper pilot from Galactica, Starbucks as she lead the flight of vipers toward the four fast moving Cylon raiders which were trying to head back to their ship.** Everything had seemed like a normal mission then the larger of the two ship headed away from the smaller ship before suddenly a sort of vortex of blue light appeared in front of the ship and then it accelerated into the vortex and disappeared. She did not have time to say anything else as her internal DRADUS system told her she was nearing her target. She could see that while those new raiders where a lot faster than her Viper her squadron had the correct angle for an attack.

Little did she know she was heading straight toward Bulldog flight of F-302 Eagle fighter. The flight was of four was in the standard combat version of the fighter, it had been updated slightly over the years increasing the missiles count from four to six and the missiles themselves where improved in range and accuracy.

"Bulldog lead I have 14 unknown fighters heading our way request advise." inquired Bulldog leader back to the Ark Royal. Since the captain was busy trying to talk down this Admiral Cain the commands for the flight came from the second in command.

"Bulldog head to fall back position by hyper space and we will pick you up." ordered the XO

"Alright Bulldogs activate Hyperspace drive." ordered the flight leader as he flipped a switch on his cockpit controls. The miniature FTL drive was a drain on power so it was normally turned off the problem was that sometimes it did not spin up properly. He waited the ten seconds for the hyperspace drive to active; when the light turned green, he knew his bird was ready. "Bulldog one is green."

"Bulldog two is green."

"Bulldog four is green."

"Bulldog three is red." said the third F-302 in his flight as all the pilots cursed, one of the hyperspace drives had malfunctioned meaning there was no way for that bird to escape into hyperspace.

"Bulldog lead to Ark Royal we are a no go we are heading back to the ship." explained the leader

"Bulldog lead, turn and burn head straight back to the ship and do not fire unless fired upon." ordered the second officer as Bulldog flight kicked it into high gear using the rocket engine which was designed to get them into space for an extra boost. With that, they began to pull away from the colonial fighters much to surprise of the Starbucks and other pilots.

"**Admiral all ships are in positions and the guns are loaded." Reported the Pegasus XO as Admiral Cain smiled, before speaking into the wireless again. **

"Since you haven't agreed to the terms in the treaty it is time for you to pay Cylons, I hope you enjoy wherever you end up." snapped Cain "All ships weapons free open fire!"

**With that, the massive guns of all four Battlestars plus the smaller guns of the support ships opened up in flashes of light.** These flashes of light was clear as day to the bridge crew of the Ark Royal and right behind the incoming weapons where flights of fighters ready to destroy the Cylons.

"All rail guns open up; get a message off to Earth we are under attack." Ordered Captain Taylor not realizing that the radio operator had not switched the radio broadcast from external to internal so his message was actually heard by the colonials. Among those who eyes widened was Commander William Adama, he had listened to the whole exchange between Admiral Cain and this Captain Ian, like Admiral Cain he thought this Tau'ri thing was a scam by the Cylons to buy time but if what he heard was correct it wasn't a Cylon trick.

"Earth did he just say Earth?" asked Saul as he turned toward his old war friend Commander Adama who looked as if one of the Lords of Kobol had appeared before him.

"Yes, we just fired on a ship from Earth." confirmed Adama still stunned as one word crossed Saul's lips that was crossing alot of lips in the fleet.

"Frak."

**Well sorry for the shorter chapter but seamed to be the best place to end the chapter. I hope you liked this chapter, now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5 Fire at Will**

The entire CIC crew of the Pegasus was stunned at what they just heard, most where not very sure they had heard correctly and still others could not process the information. Even if they had totally believed it there was nothing that could be done the shells where flying and there was nothing that could be done. The shells where high explosive and given the number flying toward the ship it would soon be nothing more than scrap metal at best. Suddenly the Dradus system detected explosions from the shell impacts but the strange thing was the fact that the explosion was happening about a 75 yards in front of the unknown vessel as if it was hitting a wall of some kind. If it had only been a single shell, it could have been a bad shell, which went off too early, but not all of them, something else had to be going on.

The Viper and Raptor pilots outside had a much better view of what was going on and one of those was the Raptor pilot who had first sighted the unknown vessels.

"What the?" asked Boomer as she watched stunned out of her Raptor window as hundreds of explosions hit a blue something in front of the ship. The only thing her mind could think of that it could be was an energy shield but that was something only possible in science fiction books and movies but here it was right in front of her eyes.

"It's moving!" yelled Helo as he looked at his Dradus read out and in fact it was moving. The blue barrier was still in front of the ship but it was disappearing as the number of shells hitting it ended. Soon it was gone and the ship was moving forward at a speed, which according to his Dradus system was nearing the speed of a viper.

**Onboard the Ark Royal the captain had ordered the ship to go to flank speed as it headed around the enemy fleet.** This left the half-finished station opened but it was unmanned and the flight of Eagle fighters where. His first goal was to get his pilots back onboard, then it would be a simple beam strike or he could beam a nuke onboard the space station.

"Fire missiles at the flight of fighters in our way and tell our birds to open fire," ordered Captain Taylor as the Ark Royal moved forward as its powerful engines forced it along at a speed almost equal to a colonial viper. As it moved toward the first line of colonial vipers a missile hatch opened and a white missile body shot out of the tube, seconds later three more missiles followed suit. The missiles nicknamed shotgun missiles where designed to deal with the countless number of Darts that a Wraith mother ship would launch at once. The missile was in fact the missile broke apart into eight smaller warheads, while not strong enough to destroy a Dart it was more than capable of putting them out of action. The missile where even more effective against the colonial Vipers then against the darts as multiple vipers exploded in fireballs as the smaller warheads found their targets.

"**Open Fire!" yelled one of the flight commanders over the wireless as the Vipers opened up on the Ark Royal with their cannons but the rounds only hit the shields.** A handful of Vipers even tried to get in closer to do a gun run against the ship however the fast firing and computer targeting rail guns of the Ark Royal stopped most from getting close. One of them did get through the fire and tried to do a close range attack only to disappear in a fireball as it slammed into the shield.

**Onboard the Ark Royal the ships lights had lowered a bit as a visual sign for being in a combat situation, the fact that the ship was rocking was enough to inform everyone on board that they were in combat.**

"Shields are holding at 91%." stated the second officer as the rail guns kept up a steady barrage of fire which was attempting to hold back the swarm of fighters which were buzzing around the ship like flies. The ship rocked again as more missiles hit the ship. "Sir there is no way that our birds can get though all those enemy's without getting hit, we need to clean the air."

Captain Taylor thought for a moment the plan of action his second officer was recommending had worked very well against wraith darts but they were not supposed to use it unless there was at least two other ships it was considered too great of a risk but it had to be done.

"Launch the sunburst nukes," ordered Taylor

**Onboard the Raptors and colonial warships alarms began blaring alerting them all that a nuke had been armed. **However, before any warnings could go out over the wireless two small disk shaped missiles shot out of the top and bottom of the Ark Royal into the heart of viper swarms. It was maybe a 100 yards away from the ship when both exploded in twin nuclear flashes.

Boomer shielded her eyes from the flash but opened them again when the light faded, what she saw was something which caused her heart to fill will fear and her flight suit to become wet for the same reason. The vipers which had been swarming around the ship like angry bees where all gone, some had been vaporized while others where drifting in space. The thing that caused her to wet her pants was the fact that the ship was perfectly fine protected by that blue bubble which faded away.

"**We are clear," said the weapon operator on the Ark Royal, the sunburst was a low-level nuke with was great at destroying fighters which could surround the ship but it did damage to the shield as well.**

"Shields down to 83%."

"Flank speed close to within beam range of that lead ship and prepare to enter hyperspace the moment we get our fighters on board." ordered Captain Taylor

"Sir the station?" inquired the XO as the captain cursed to himself for forgetting about the station.

"Arm mark VIII and beam it next to the power core on the station." ordered Taylor "The station can be replaced our lives can't."

"Yes, sir." confirmed the XO as he went to carry out his orders.

**Down in the armory it was organized chaos as the crew made sure that once a missile tube was clear another was being loaded in. **

"Arm Mark VII for Beam out." came a voice over the load speakers as two crewmembers pulled a meter tall warhead out of the long line of warheads that sat in cases built into the very walls of the ship. Carefully the placed a marker on the bomb luckily the new version had the built in detonator which would exploded 15 seconds after the teleportation beam was finished.

"Mark VIII ready." said a crewmember to the woman who stood behind a small podium with a computer with a few taps a glow of white light surrounded the warhead before it disappeared.

"Warhead away." stated the operator

**Outside the colonial forces were still trying to figure out what was going on with their main wireless jammed they had to go to their backup frequency**. With so many people, trying to communicate on the same network no one could understand what was going on. To make matters worse the radiation from the nukes where causing even more problems. Due to all the communication problems messages where being broadcasted back and forth messages where being dropped. Then a much stronger nuke .went off behind the strange ship as the station went up in a blinding flash of light. While away from the main battle the nuke was causing even trouble for the wireless gears.

"All forces do not fire! FOR THE LOVE OF THE GODS DO NOT FIRE!" yelled Cain over her wireless broadcasts. However due to all the drop communication parts of the message dropped. It was very random on what people heard. A luckily few heard the whole message while others heard "All forces….fire." or simple "Fire"

With that the fleet went into even chaos as parts of the fleet opened fire while others held their fire.

"What the frak is going on?" inquired Commander Adama on Galactica as he looked at the DRADUS screen, which showed that about half the fleet, was firing while the rest was holding it's fire. Galactica was one of the few who had received the message in it is entirely so they knew to hold their fire. However two of the other Battlestars and five of the other ships where firing more shells at the Ark Royal.

**Outside the vipers and raptors, where equally confused as some began to pull back into defensive positions while others charged forward**. Among those who kept charging forward was Starbuck as her gold flight headed straight toward the oncoming group of four black fighters.

"ETA to contact 90 seconds." said Starbucks as she prepared to fire, however suddenly her Dradus picked up eight missiles flying toward them.

"Break!" yelled Starbuck as she snapped her Viper around in a standard missile evade move, she knew she still had a few seconds to finish the move which would throw most missiles off her tail. She looked down at her Dradus only to see that those missiles where a lot closer then what they should have been which meant they were a lot faster than any missiles she had ever heard of.

What she didn't know and couldn't have known was that the missiles which were flying toward her was modified slammer missiles and instead of heading straight forward they would either arch up or down and hit their target from there. The colonials had never experienced missiles like that and when they adjusted their moves to evade those missiles they opened thenselves up to Tau'ri sidewinders missiles, which was coming straight at them in two waves of four each. That meant that there was twelve Tau'ri missiles in flight and nine of them hit home and caused the colonial Vipers to disappear.

One of those missiles strike the Viper right behind Starbuck causing pieces of metal to fly into her Viper's left side hydronic causing her stick to go dead. She was dead in the water with only her flight controls on her right side working, so she could spin around in a circle nothing more.

"Frak!" yelled Starbucks as she slammed her fist on the counsel, she looked around only to see golden tracer rounds flew past her destroying another one of her vipers. As the first of those damned black fighter buzzed past she could see a human figure sitting in the cockpit.

"Your shooting at your cousins!" yelled Starbucks to herself as she spun her head around only to see the second group of two fighter coming her way. This was her chance to get payback against those frakers.

Starbuck used the little power she had to spun her Viper around and there was her target, one of those damn black fighters who had shot down so many of her fellow pilots was in range and yes it was making a turn exposing it's belly to her. She pulled the trigger as her three guns opened up, the rounds flew true and slammed into the right wing and engine area. Starbucks was reward as smoke began to come streaming out of the fighter.

"**Bulldog 4 is hit!" yelled his wingman Bulldog 3 as the F-302 fighter began spinning out of control, smoke was escaping fast from one of engines and one of the wings was half gone.** Judging from the shaking, which had happening the bird was moments away from falling apart. "Get out of there."

Bulldog 4 did not have to be told again as he reached down and pulled the long rode which ran across the bottom of the seat. With that explosive charges went off around the cockpit windows and then once the canopy was blown clear the seat shot up and out. Luckily, the new flight suit had a sealed helmet and oxygen system allowing ejections in space.

"We have a look on Bulldog Four." reported an officer on the Ark Royal "Beaming now."

Within seconds, the pilot of the destroyed Eagle was engulfed in light and then appeared in the medical bay of the Ark Royal. The pilot did not need any medical attention but it was standing orders to do so. Once the onboard computer of the half destroyed Eagle detected that it's pilot was beamed away it activated its own self-destruct which caused the Eagle to be totally destroyed leaving nothing behind.

"**Shields holding at 73%," reported the operator on the Ark Royal another barrage of 18in caliber shells from the colonials hit the shield.** While not by themselves, a threat the numbers of shells and the high rate that they were hitting the shield was chipping it away.

"Tike to take off the kid gloves with these people." snapped Captain Taylor "Do we have a firing solution with the beam weapons?"

"Yes." confirmed his second in command.

"Fire!" ordered Captain Taylor

**Outside Boomer thought, she had seen everything when this ship had survived not only a nuke strike but the firing from up to eleven colonial warships four of whom where battlestars which should have made anything into mincemeat, however she was wrong.** Suddenly a blue glow gathered under the strange ship, suddenly the glow shot out of the ship and took the form of a cylinder. Then before her eyes it hit the nearest ship to the Ark Royal the Medusa class destroyer. The beam hit the warship and to the surprised of the Raptor pilot, it went straight though the ship, seconds after it finished passing through the whole ship exploded into nothing but chunks of metal.

"By the Gods!" exclaimed Helo as he monitored the entire battle. That is when two additional blue glows appeared under the ship.

"No please no." prayed Boomer but her prayers went unanswered as the first beam went out and hit another Medusa Class destroyer only this one didn't totally explode it was instead was speared though, secondary explosions began to rip the ship apart. The next fire of the beam was targeted at the flagship the battlestar Pegasus.

It looked like blue death as the second beam hit the bow of the Pegasus. Maybe it was the thicker armor on the battlestar or something else but for a second the beam seamed stop and then the bow of the Pegasus blew off the ship ripping off the front quarter of the massive battlestar.

The Mercury class Battlestar Atreus that was nearest to Pegasus had a clean line of sight on the much smaller Ark Royal. To make it even better it had the ship right in the middle of its kill box where it could bring all its massive guns to beer in a full broadside. The side of the Atreus glowed all at once as all the main guns and smaller guns fired at the same time at the smaller ship however just like all the last time that blue shield took everything the much larger battlestar could give.

"**Shields down to 59%." yelled the operator on the Ark Royal as the ship rocked from that massive blow from the battleship sized warship.**

"Fire!" ordered Captain Taylor as both of the ships Asgard beam weapons turned on the battlestar, it never stood a chance as both fired at the same time hitting the ship in two different spots. The beams ripped through the warship causing secondary explosions and super heating the atmosphere it came into contact with. Unlike the Pegasus who was lucky, enough to seal off the damage area before entire ship lost atmosphere both of the beams hit two of the shell storage areas. The battlestar exploded into tiny pieces as the thousands of shells exploded all at once.

The force of the blast from all those shells caused more damage to the shield of the Ark royal then the barrage from the now distorted battlestar's guns.

"Shields down to 41%." yelled the operators

"We have minor fires on decks four and six!" yelled the XO

"Where is Bulldog flight!" yelled the Captain

"Sixty seconds out and no enemy's ships in our way." reported Radar operator as the Ark Royal moved toward its fighters. The destruction of four of their ships including two Battlestars in the span of less than 120 seconds caused even those who had not received Admiral Cain's orders to stop shooting to pull back. Bulldog flight flew into the hanger without any trouble passing through both the outer shield and the hanger bay shield as they landed.

"Bulldog flight is onboard." Reported the second in command of the Ark Royal as Captain Taylor nodded his head.

"Make sure all stations are secured and prepare for hyperspace." Ordered Captain Taylor as the rail guns stopped firing and the missile tubes where closed. The brief stop in fire allowed those few colonial viper flights who still wanted to fight a chance to get into range, however their few rounds did nothing to stop the Ark Royal as the hyperspace window opened up. With a burst of speed, the Ark Royal disappeared leaving four colonial ships either heavy damaged or all out destroyed and untold numbers of their military members dead or wounded.

**Onboard the Galactica Commander Adama was just coming to grips with what his Dradus screen was showing him.** Three ships had totally vanished from his screen and the Pegasus was now in two and they had no wireless contact with the Vice Admiral. That meant that since he was the senior ranking officer he was in command of what remained of the fleet. The battlestar alone had over 1,750 souls onboard all of whom were likely dead and the medusa class ships each had 300 souls each. That meant that not even taking into account the viper and raptor pilots lost which would take time to figure out or those who died on Pegasus that around 2350 people had died over the course of a couple of minutes. He had to save as many as he could.

"Order all Raptors to start search for our people," ordered Adama as he wondered how he would explain this to high command.

**Onboard the Pegasus smoke from countless numbers of fires filled the air with smoke. **The members of crew, which were still alive, was working toward putting them out. Standing in her CIC with blood dripping from a deep gash on her forehead and her arm was likely broken. The Pegasus's wireless broadcast was out but they could still hear the broadcast from others.

"Admiral Cain, Commander Adama is ordering a search and recovery mission to begin," reported her XO

"Good." Said Cain as she coughed a bit, maybe she had a broken rib to go with the arm, at that moment the Dradus came back online and she saw that three of her ships where gone. "By the Gods, what did they hit us with?

**At the tail end of the colonial fleet sat a sole Raptor and sitting in the copilot seat with computer pad in her hands was one of the best documentary film maker in the 12 colonies of Kobol, D'Anna Biers**. She and her crew had been filming a sort of nature film on the Battlestar; the job was paid for by the military to show life on a Battlestar before the next budget battle. That battlestar had been turned to dust by that strange beam of light and the films in her cameras would be used for something very different.

The men and women who they had been filming were now likely dead, however their death sadly gave her the biggest news story ever, the return of Earth and the battle that happened. The computer pad had been attached by a long adaptor cable to the gun camera of the Raptor allowing her to zoom in on the floating remains of the Pegasus. The film, which was in reality a digital video, was being saved on her computer. This video along with the recorded wireless broadcast would be the corner stones of her story.

"We need to get back to the fleet?" stated her raptor pilot who was likely the only survivor from his ship.

"I hate to say this but at the moment maybe it would be better if we stayed out of the way," offered up her sound guy

"Maybe, but my Gods look at that." Stated the pilot as the separated bow of the Pegasus exploded as something went off, there was no way he could see that anyone was left alive there.

"Yes, it is hard to process," stated D'Anna as she pressed a small button on the computer. The pilot was so focus on the scene before him that he did not notice his wireless transmitter activate on its own. In truth, it was not on its own but instead with the help of a hidden Cylon virus, which was designed to shut down colonial defenses before the attack under D'Anna's control it, was doing something very different. This was so important that she had to risk her cover and with two simple computer pushes the video of the battle and the verbal exchange between the two forces was sent to a hidden Cylon Raider which had been shadowing her just on their side of the boarder. The other Cylon models needed to know that somehow Earth, the 13th colony that was supposed to be nothing more than a myth was in fact very real and very dangerous.

**It was a none descript warehouse just like any warehouse anywhere back on Earth, however this wasn't on Earth and instead of holding palletized items on massive shelves instead it was totally empty.** In fact the only thing that made it stand out was the floor with was made out squares which were six by six inches wide.

Standing outside the warehouse was a group of twelve men and women dressed in the most advanced combat gear. Each was checking their personal weapons, which in for the most part was the new SR-13 or Standard Rifle 13. The rifle looked to him like a cross between a Heckler &amp; Koch G-36 and Beretta ARX 160 assault rifle. The version they had was the Special Forces version, which was slightly shorter, and had a silencer built in.

"It's a standard sweep and clear we are to remove all threats but do not harm any none combatants." ordered the leader as he checked to make sure that the red training light was glowing in the handle of his rifle.

"Understood." said the man at the far end of the line in a thick Russian accent, which caused the leader to cringle a bit. He knew that the cold war was long over and on some levels he did not even takes part in the missions against the Soviet Union but Colonel Jack O'Neill still did not like having Russians on his team. Of the twelve members on his new team, he had members from eight different nations. He had two Russians, two Germans, including himself three Americans and then he had one member from the nations of Great Britain, Australia, Japan, China and Israel.

However the Asgard clone of General Jack O'Neill did not have a say on the nationality of his teammates, this was supposed to be an international team of highly trained Special Forces, which would respond to threats in the form of terrorism, or to be sent in to save an SG team, which was overmatched. O'Neill had put in to be assigned back to the SGC but the IOA believed it would cause a conflict if they returned him to the SGC so here he was leading a strike team on Valhalla. On some levels he had no right to complain he reclaimed the rank of colonel and a whole ten years ahead of when most people.

"Check your weapons and prepare to move out," ordered the 32-year-old O'Neill or seventeen depending on if you went by the age he was physically or when he was clone. They did not say another word as they formed up on the door, with a single kick the door flew open and the training began. The empty warehouse had changed at once as some of the 6x6 in squares, which covered the floor, shot up and formed what is commonly called a shoot house.

"Clear" said his Russian sniper Angela who had traded her normal sniper rifle for a stand rifle. The rest of the team was moving into the house and toward the three doors. The doors where made out of holograms which while not solid meant that they could not be seen through. That meant they had four people on each door.

At the same time, they all breached the door and entered their rooms. Jack's room turned out to be a long hallway.

"Contact!" yelled another female voice, which Jack knew, belonged to his American Riflewoman Lisa Rancor who was in another team. Seconds later came the sound of gunfire.

"Target down." Yelled Lisa a few seconds later as the team kept moving through the house taking down any threat they say. Like the doors their enemies was nothing but holograms but there was a planned combat drill where his team would have to go up against the second team in two weeks and he wanted to win.

Ten minutes later, they had cleared all the rooms with the only injury being when his heavy weapons expert dropped his pack down on his foot when everything was done. When they finished at the range, they still had to do the three mile run back to the main base where they would lock everything up and head home.

As they ran down the road Jack took note of all the things that changed, first his combat gear looked as if it had been designed by someone who had spent way too much time playing video games. It had a sort of power suit built in to increase speed and strength and could be fitted with a full visor helmet with a heads up display. There was even a version which was airtight and had a built in oxygen scrubber for combat in space or planets without a breathable atmosphere.

This mind came back to the real world as he heard the massive booms as a couple of Leopard tanks began to do live fire at the range. Finally, twenty minutes after getting back to base he was back in civilian cloths and on the train back home.

**He almost fell asleep during the twenty-minute ride on the train, which led into one of the subdivisions outside of the city limits. **Whoever designed the city had set it up like cities in Europe with a high reliance on trains. Each train stop had a large parking lot for cars to sit all day while people road the trains to work into the cities.

O'Neill walked got off the train at his stop and headed toward his car; it did not take him more than ten minutes to reach his house and just as he turned off the car the front door of his neighbor's house opened.

"Hello Jack." said his neighbor as she walked out in her tight jogging cloths and an Ipod strapped to her shoulder.

"Mary, going for a run?" inquired Jack even though he could tell by her jogging outfit what she was going to do, but it just seemed like the right thing to ask.

"Now that I can." laughed Mary as she stretched a little bit "Think just two years ago I had to take those mobile shopping carts at Walmart because I couldn't walk. Thank God for modern science."

"Yes, thank the great pumpkin for that," laughed Jack as he headed inside the two-storied house, which would not have looked out of place in any American sub division. He stopped at the front door and looked around the neighborhood most of the people where still at work but others were enjoying the late fall weather on Valhalla. He knew like Mary, a lot of them had used the benefits of the new technologies coming out of the Stargate.

About six years earlier the US had unleased upon the world the main civilian item the US wanted from the gate first. It was not the cure for cancer or AIDs since many nations wanted that and the question was more of who would get credit for it instead it was a modified version of Replicator human cells. They removed all programs and built it up from scratch and turned it into a medical technology which has changed millions of lives.

A doctor would inject a vile full of the cells into someone body and then the robotic cells would go to work carrying out their program. While that program could be modified the most common goal was removing blockage from the blood vessels, then the replicator cells would leave the body. To make sure there was not anything left the body would then be blasted by an EMP field destroying any cells which may be left behind. That was the original plan but then some civilian doctor came up with an idea which caught on like wild fire and had far more benefits to the overall health of the US and the World.

The cells would be used to remove excess fat cells from the body, current forms could not build missiles but that was supposed to be coming soon. They had demonstrated the effects by getting fifty volunteers all of whom where morbidly obese and then ejected them with the cells. Over the course of a week the average weight loss was over 20 pounds, the replicator cells would help support the body during the weight loss. There were now whole vacation clients/spas where people would spend up to 10 days with the cells in their bodies losing weight while relaxing. The overall result was amazing as Obesity rates in the US, which had been as high as high as 27% was now in the single digits. That was a huge help to the US military since it qualified more people for military duty.

He pushed that out of his mind as he opened his front door and was instantly greeted by a bark.

"Quiet." Ordered Jack to the three-year-old male yellow Labrador retriever who stood at the top of the stairs looking at him.

"You are back early." came a voice from the kitchen as Jack hung his keys up on the hooks his daughter had made in last year.

"Only about ten minutes or so." said Jack to his wife as he entered the kitchen and looked at his wife, Cassandra Fraiser O'Neill. On some levels, he has known her since his older self and SG1 found her as the sole survivor of the biological attack on Hanka. In the end she had been adopted by his late friend Dr. Janet Fraiser. They had reunited when they had meet back up in the Air Force Academy, she was following her mother in the medical field and he was cursing being a freshman again. They had bounded over their shared experience and at some point it had become something more.

"Well I have the night shift tonight so you know what that means?" said Cassandra or Cassie; she was a surgeon at the military hospital.

"That I will read the bedtime stories," said Jack "I am sure I can handle it."

"And make sure they get to bed at a decent time, they have school tomorrow." ordered Cassie

"I will." Stated Jack as his wife glared at him for a moment to get her point across.

"So did anything happen today?" inquired Cassie as Jack shook his head.

"Nothing happened." reported Jack as suddenly the phone rang.

**Well I hope you liked this chapter and how the battle took place between the Colonials and the Tau'ri. I know some may be upset that the Ark Royal shields dropped as low as they did but the colonials have a lot of big guns and even though the shield could take the punishment too much of small hits will bring it down. Now until next time I hope you keep reading, thanks Wilkins75.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6 After Action Reports**

Three hours later the Ark Royal exited hyperspace a far away from the location where they had traded shots with the colonial forces. The militaries of Earth had already been informed about what had happened and where in the process of trying to figure out what to do. While they worked on behind the scene another more important operation was about to begin. The Ark Royal was the last ship to arrive as it exited hyperspace it moved into Valhalla system going past some of the defense satellites. The ship was far from alone there was in fact all but ten of Earth's sixty seven strong fleet was sitting between in orbit of Valhalla waiting to start the three day journey to Earth. The remaining ten warships of the Tau'ri where split up between the Atlantis and those staying at Valhalla.

"It is amazing to see all these ships at the same time." said the second officer knowing that somehow the shipyards at Valhalla and the two on Earth had somehow built all these ships as fast they did. True most of them where either Daedalus class or Galahad class ships which were a lot smaller than the Battleships and Carriers. Infact the teams on Valhalla had borrowed a way to build ships from American World War 2 Liberty Ships. Instead of having, a single team build a whole ship teams would instead focus on building different parts of the ship and then they would just put the different parts of the ships together.

The ships were separated into six task groups centered around one of the six capital ships which where the most powerful ships ever created by humanity. Fifteen countries now had warships of some kind and they were all here, the ten ships which were on mission to defend Valhalla or Atlantis belonged to the big eight powers of USA, Russia, France, China, Great Britain, India, Brazil and Germany which together controlled fifty three of the sixty seven ships. America had the most at ten ships with Russia and China each having at eight each. Next Great Britain and France both had six each. The last two nations with the most numbers of ships was Germany, Brazil and India at five ships each. The other nations of Canada, Australia, Spain, Italy, Japan, South Korea and South Africa had less only one or two ships.

The Ark Royal moved toward the British Battleship Britannia and the British/Australian fleet and took it's assigned spot in the fleet.

"Captain the Admiral wants to speak to you on the Britannia." stated the second officer as Captain Taylor nodded his head as he stood up from his chair and straightened his uniform. He nodded toward the officer assigned to the Asgard beam controls. Within seconds he was engulfed in light and then seconds later he appeared on the bridge of the Britannia.

The Bridge of the Battleship was set up similar to the bridge on the Ark Royal only taken to a whole other level. There was a command chair where the captain or Admiral could direct the actions of the ship however, lines of computer banks were lined up in three sunken rows so that the Captain could see everything from the seat. Before everyone was a giant window, which could covered up with armor when in combat. A holographic head up display could be pulled up for everyone to see.

"Captain Taylor." said a voice as he turned to see a fellow Captain standing there.

"Captain Cooper." said Captain Taylor as the two officers saluted each other.

"Welcome to the Britannia, the Admiral is in the war room, please follow me," said Captain Cooper as the two of them left the bridge of the Britannia, as they moved down the perfectly clean hallways. The ship had only been launched months earlier and apart from the shake down run it hadn't gone anywhere. He could even smell fresh paint as he moved up a flight of stairs and entered the war room. The room was a dominated by a long rectangle table in the center. On one sidewall was a giant engraved Union Jack flag and across from the flag on the other wall sat three large brass seals, the first was the seal of the ship itself next came the symbol of the Tau'ri and finally the seal of the royal family of Great Britain.

Captain Taylor eyes widened as he saw that it was not just the Admiral standing there but there was also either the Admiral or General who was in command of each of the battleships or Carrier. It was a strange mixture of type which had to be addressed in the future, since the Navy was in command of the British and French forces while the Air Force controlled the American and Chinese ships and the Russians where the strangest they had the army in charge of their ships.

"Sirs." said Captain Taylor as he saluted all the men in the room floating in the center of the room was the holographic image of a planet he did not recognize. He did know what Wraith hive ships looked like and seven of them where floating above the planet.

"At ease son." ordered the British Admiral "I was just going over the planned operations with my fellow commanders for our operations against the Wraith in the Pegasus Galaxy. Now can you please tell us yourself about your little scuffle with these unknown ships?"

"Yes, Admiral." confirmed Captain Taylor "We were about three hours away from finishing our mission of setting of a long range sensor and radio station on the outer edge of the Valhalla defense line. When these Colonial ships as they called themselves appeared in flashes of light."

"You mean they came out of Hyperspace." corrected the Chinese General

"No Sir, they just appeared in flashes of light…kind of like Atlantis appeared over Earth when they did battle with that super Hive Ship all those years ago." stated Captain Taylor as he remembered reports from that battle, at the time he was still on the surface. "We attempted to engage these colonials in communication but they believed us to be members of some group called the Cylons. We apparently was sitting on their border and in the treaty they have with these Cylons no station could be set up on said boarder and whoever did set up the station the other side could destroy it."

"I see and I assume you told them you where Tau'ri not these Cylons?" inquired one of the two American Generals in the room.

"Yes, sir however they believed it to be part of a trick and fired on us anyhow," stated Captain Taylor

"What sort of weapons?" inquired the Russian Army General in broken English.

"Mostly heavy cannons from their ships four of whom where the size of our new battleships however there was some missile fire from their fighters." reported Captain Taylor "The shield blocked everything they sent our way and once we recovered our fighters and destroyed the station with a nuke we entered hyperspace and headed here. We destroyed three of their ships, left another heavily damaged and destroyed countless fighters, the strange thing was either they have very weak shields or none at all."

"Could you have saved the station?" inquired the Chinese General as Captain Taylor shook his head.

"No, sir the only way we could have was with a tow beam and we won't have one installed until our next overall." Explained Captain Taylor "It was either destroy it or leave it to be captured so I destroyed it."

"Was there anything you can done to avoid this battle?" inquired the France Admiral

"Sir, it is hard to avoid a fight when the other guy throws the first punch." counted Captain Taylor

"Captain Taylor as long as everything you told us is true then you did nothing wrong." said the British Admiral as he tried to put the younger man at ease. "We only want to know if anything else happened before we make our recommendations to General O'Neill and the IOA. Now is there anything else you failed to tell us?"

"A few hours earlier I informed General O'Neill that we were picking up faint radio singles from a nearby system which was supposed to be devoid of advance life. It was too weak to know what it was and I requested and got permission to investigate the source once the Da Vinci finished setting up the station however we were attacked before that could happen," explained Captain Taylor as the high-ranking officers nodded their heads.

"Thank you Captain." said the Russian General "I think we have what we needed."

With that Captain Taylor left the room leaving the high ranking officers alone for a moment.

"His version fits all the reports we have from the Da Vinci's Captain and the second officer on the Ark Royal." stated the French Admiral as he looked down at the report from the Italian Captain of the Da Vinci. "I have also looked over the video they transmitted and everything fits."

"Agreed." confirmed the Chinese general "He acted well in combat and did what was needed, however I would have tried to recover the station instead of just destroying it. However having it fall into enemy hands would be far worst."

"We shouldn't second guess him, it was more important to recover his people and protect our technology by preventing it from falling in unknown hands." stated one of the American Generals as the second one nodded his head in agreement.

"So Captain Taylor is off the hock but what do we recommend to General O'Neill and the IAO?" inquired the British Admiral

"Our first steps should be to protect Valhalla." stated the Russian General "Valhalla is our fortress among the stars, it is the best place we have found in two galaxies to build ships and those ships are our shield and sword. We need to make sure we can forge more and that happens on Valhalla."

"Agreed, I say we keep five more Daedalus class ships here to reinforce the ships already there, this unknown threat is too close for my liking." offered the French Admiral "One ship from each of our nations?"

"I would recommend we keep four more ships here and send the Odyssey to the system the Ark Royal was going to check out to try to figure out who we are dealing with," offered up one of the Americans. The Odyssey with its Ancient cloak which was by far more efficient than anything they had made was perfect for recon missions.

"The Politicians may not like that; they want the Odyssey to appear in front of the crowds over New York." Stated the British Admiral

"Finding out what we are facing is more important than that, fifty three ships are just as impressive as fifty seven," countered the Chinese's as the others nodded their head in agreement.

"Alright that is what I'll recommend to General O'Neill." Confirmed the British Admiral "Alright then let's turn back to propose operation against the Wraith, now General Shepard has located a primary target which we have to considering hitting within the next month."

**Far away from the war room of the Britannia the head of the Colonial Military stormed down a long marble hallway heading toward a meeting.** His head was looking down at the paperwork in his hands and he did not even salute the two Army soldiers who traditional stood outside the doors whenever the President of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol was in a full Cabinet meeting. The doors swinging open caused everyone around the large circular table to look up and turn their heads toward the door where the Commander of the whole Colonial Military General Michael Roose.

"General your late." noted President Adar as the former Caprica city mayor turned President leaned back in his chair. All around him was every member of the cabinet and since it was the first meeting of the month a high-ranking member of the Quorum from each of the 12 colonies of Kobol. Only two seats where empty one of which belonged to the former Colonial Marine who now was the Commander of the entire military the other belonged to no single person but a whole missing world.

"Sorry Mr. President but we have had a development which requires your attention at once." reported the General as everyone raised an eyebrow at his tone. "If the situation was different I would come to you in private but we have only a few hours before it is made public."

"What is going on General?" asked the Press Secretary

"A Raptor from Galactica headed toward a standard recon mission on the Cylon Boarder while there two ships appeared." reported the General as a chill went up everyone's spin "The larger ship then began to construct a station of some kind just on the Cylon side of the boarder."

"Cylons?" asked President Adar as he voiced what everyone was thinking.

"We are not sure," reported the General as everyone blinked, that was not what they were expecting. "The Pegasus task force under Vice Admiral Cain moved in to destroy the station which is in violation of the treaty and when they arrived the ship claimed to be the HMS Ark Royal from a group called the Tau'ri."

"You made contact with an Alien Race?" asked Secretary of Education Laura Roslin, that caused a few laughed from the most religious around the table. Even the possibility of Alien life was laughable to some of the most faithful since according to the Holy Scriptures the galaxy was made by the Lords of Kobol for humanity.

"Sorry but there is no such thing as Aliens, the scared scrolls say that the Lords of Kobol made the galaxy for their children and no one else." reported the Sagittaron member of the Quorum.

"General?" inquired President Adar "Are we in a shooting war with the Cylons?"

"Not sure." admitted the General as he took a breath "We are still waiting for more information but when our task group opened up on the unknown whoever was manning the wireless broadcaster wasn't fast enough and we got some of their internal communication."

"And that did they say?"

"I quote "All rail guns open up and inform…Earth that we are under attack"" reported General Roose as the President looked toward the empty seat which had been left empty ever since the first cabinet meeting by the very first president of the 12 tribes, the Seat belonged to Earth. The seat had been left open ever since the colonies had unified in the hopes that one day the seat would be filled. It was the same in the Quorum who always had 1/13th of their seats empty as a show that someday the 13th tribe would be found and be brought back into the fold.

"So you're telling me we destroyed a ship from the 13th colony?" inquired President Adar a task force was normally made out of at least three Battlestars and escorts.

"No sir, from the reports when Admiral Cain opened fire the ship made it and returned fire before pulling back." reported the Admiral "As far as we can see they only lost a station which they destroyed themselves and one of their fighters was shot down, pilot likely killed."

"So both sides traded some shots at the cost of a handful of lives," stated the Secretary of State as he played the battle in his mind "Maybe we could brush this thing to the side when we finally meet them face to face."

"It wasn't a handful of lives lost it was the bloodbath." snapped General Roose "While this Earth ship and we are still not sure they are from Earth was pulling back they fired some type of weapon we thought impossible, a directed energy beam. It cut right through three of our ships including a battlestar destroying them. Another Battlestar took heavy damage we are looking at nearly three thousand KIA at least."

"Frak." cursed President Adar "And how soon do you think this will hit the press."

"Within hours, there was a film crew on one of the ships recording the ship for a documentary report and when the battle took place they recorded everything," explained the General. "We took the video for study but there is no way we can keep them quiet they heard the broadcast about Earth. Even putting Earth to the side, the deaths of unknown numbers of colonial men and women in uniform and the loss of a ship cannot be hidden. The story will come out."

"Alright when will you know more?" inquired President Adar

"About eight hours that is when the hard recordings from the ships will arrive back along with some time for us to go over them." Reported General Roose as President Adar nodded his head before checking his watch before looking toward the Quorum members.

"Can you get the entire Quorum together for a speech to the colonies within 10 hours?" inquired President Adar

"Difficult but do able," reported the most senior Quorum member in the room.

"Do it." ordered President Adar "I will address the colonies about this issue, in the meantime General I want options for a general call up of reserves and I want our current forces alert level raised."

"Yes, sir." confirmed the General as Adar looked around the room, suddenly the education bill which they had been debating didn't matter as much.

**Meanwhile on Earth a tall man was walking down the hallways of the Pentagon in his dress blue US Air force Uniform made him feel somewhat uncomfortable but he was far from out of place.** As he walked multiple lower ranking officials stood aside and saluted the newly made Major General John Shepard. The once helicopter pilot turned leader of the first recon team out of Atlantis had risen through the ranks since his return to Earth with Atlantis in 2009. During Atlantis brief, stay on Earth before returning to the Pegasus galaxy he had been named commander of all military forces in Atlantis and control of all ships in the galaxy. That was the main reason he now had two stars on his shoulders.

He turned a corner before entering a large office.

"Major General Shepard to see General O'Neill." said Shepard to the Air force officer who was sitting behind the nearest desk.

"General O'Neill has been expecting you," said the officer as he buzzed John into a much larger officer where the head of all Intergalactic forces was sitting behind a desk.

"General O'Neill." said Shepard as he saluted the man he had first met all those years ago when he was a helicopter pilot in the Antarctic.

"At ease Shepard." said O'Neill as he looked up at the younger man. "Do you have any ideas why I called you here today?"

"I assume it is to talk about the planned operation in Pegasus to push back and defeat the Wraith." stated Shepard as he sat down across from the five star general. "However I wish you had waited until I was finished with my vacation instead of beaming me from my hotel room to here. We will be standing side by side when they unveil the gate next week."

"Well we are going over your plan and it seems likely to be approved by the IOA once they are done strutting for the Cameras next week when we inform the world about the Stargate." stated O'Neill "However there is something else I want to talk to you about."

"What is it?" inquired Shepard

"A couple of hours ago the Ark Royal was attacked by a group of unknown ships, a small battle insulted and while we took no damage it is something that needs to be addressed." explained O'Neill. "Once we introduce the Stargate to our people you will take a small task force of nine ships including the Missouri and try to make contact with this people. We are sending the Odyssey out ahead of you to find out what you are dealing with. Depending on what they find you may make official face to face contact with them."

"Find out why they like to shot people first?" inquired Shepard as O'Neill nodded his head.

"Now that formal stuff is done how are your son and daughter enjoying Earth?" inquired O'Neill, he had not been able to talk to Shepard in a while outside of work related matters.

"Little Elizabeth loves Disney as much as any six year old but…" started Shepard only to stop "My 12 year old step son is still processing what I told him a few weeks ago."

"Oh…what is that?" inquired O'Neill

"See, Torren was only three when his father died and was five when I married Teyla." explained Shepard "In Athosian society at the age of thirteen a child gets to decide if they want their father last name or their mothers for the rest of their life. Now since I am the step father he can pick mine and he had even said he wanted that but I had to tell him the truth before he made up his mind."

"He didn't know about you not being his real father?" inquired O'Neill

"No I never hid that from him, but I did hide the fact that I killed his father." Explained Shepard as O'Neill Blinked he had never seen any reports saying a member of the Atlantis team had killed an Athosian. "I didn't kill him so that I could have Teyla if that is what your thinking sir, no it was an accident. It was when we first started to send forces back into the Pegasus Galaxy, we were setting up a communication and early warning station on this planet. The local population was very friendly and helpful all and all it was a basic mission, no real risk."

"So what happened?" inquired O'Neill, the early warning system had been a major success it warned the people whenever the Wraith was nearby giving them time to get somewhere safe and allowed their few ships to set up ambushes on the Wraith.

"Part of the early warning station is a satellite which had to go in orbit so I had to take the jumper. Now Torren father, Kanaan was a trader and since he was on good terms with the local people he went along to do some trading." explained Shepard "I couldn't carry him and the other traders in the jumper because of the satellite so they had to walk the distance between the gate and the village. Everything was going great until a Wright Dart came out of the Gate."

"The Wright got him?" inquired O'Neill

"You could say that I guess. I shot down the Dart before it could reach the village to cull and of the people for feeding." explained Shepard as he remembered the cheer he did to himself when he shot it down, Teyla had been sitting beside him in the copilot chair the entire time. Little did they know she would be crying later that day. "I thought I saved the people but when I shot it down the burning wretch landed on top of the trading caravan killing Kanan and three other traders."

"Damn…that is very unlucky," stated O'Neill

"No kidding, Teyla never blamed me nor did anyone else not even Kanan's family but trying to explain to a kid who you have raised as your own son that you killed his biological father by accident is hard." explained Shepard "He is processing the information."

"Well he is almost 13 so add on the whole teenager hormones." added O'Neill as he looked down at his watch. "I need to debrief the President about this and let the people who care figure out which cities will not get a spaceship visit."

"And I need to be heading back to my family." Stated Shepard as he stood up, within moment Shepard disappeared in a flash of light.

**It was just before nine at night and for the first time since the end of the Clyon War the colonial government had demanded airtime instead of asking for it.** So all the comedy shows which normally broadcasted around this time were off the air and even the wireless music channels where down. Every last station was to carry the President's speech and there was no way to get avoid it.

The meeting hall of the Tribes of Kobol was a massive circular room with seats running around the entire room. The center area of the room was left open so that whoever was speaking in this case it would be the President could move around and address any issues brought up different members of the Quorum. The seats where split up into 15 different groups, there was one selection for each of the 12 colonies in which the most senior members would sit nearest to the speaker. The other three selections belonged to different groups, first belonged to the Military who protected the people and the second were for the Priest and Priestess who served the Lords of Kobol. While neither group got an actual vote when it came to passing, laws they were both granted a seat and a voice at the table. The last selection of seats was left open for the 13th tribe Earth. However, the space was always opened so it was generally used to put up displays of one kind or another.

"Sir we are ready." Reported President's Adar chief advisor as Adar wondered what would happen when those seat where filled by the representatives of Earth. Adar closed his eyes knowing that in the next few moments, he would be making history and this speech would go down in history of the 12 no 13 tribes of Kobol. "It is time."

"Thank you James." Thanked Richard Adar as he stood up and moved toward a large full-length mirror. He took a few moments to straighten his suit and check himself in the mirror. "It is time to make history."

With that President Adar moved out into the long hallway where the stone busts of every president that had come before him sat, their stone eyes watching him as he moved toward the meeting room, the hallway lead under the seats and the only cameraman actually worked for the office of the President. He paused for a moment as the speaker and vice president addressed the chamber before finally he walked in to the sound of clapping. He waved back at the crowd before moving to stand with his back to the empty seats. Everyone else stood as the national anthem was played and the flags of each colony was lowered over the seats of their planet's 100 delegates. Finally a prayer to the Lords of Kobol was given by the most senior member of the faith.

"First of all I must thank you all for granting me the chance to speak to you this evening and on such short notice as well." Thanked President Adar as he took a deep breath "There have been a lot of rumors moving across the wireless waves about what this is all about. Some of them theories range from the return of the Cylons to me resigning from this high office. Well I come to you this evening to inform you all about a military event that happened just hours ago on the Cylon Boarder when a Raptor from the Battlestar Galactica launched on a standard recon mission to monitor wireless broadcast on the boarder."

It was clear that a lot of the people where shifting in their seats, even the military was shifting in their seats since all but the highest ranking officers knew what the President was going to say.

"The Raptor camera recorded two unknown ships right on the Cylon side of the boarder and one of these ships started construction of a station of some kind." reported the President as the lights dimmed and the image of the two unknown ships appeared on the overhead above him. "Now believing these where Cylons the Colonial military launched a defensive operation against this ship. The ships claimed to belong to a group called the Tau'ri and believing this to be a Cylon trick a small battle was fought."

Adar could see the fear on the faces of his fellow colonials however somewhere confused about why he hadn't come out and say the Cylons where behind it.

"Right after the first volley of shells was launched the Captain of the unknown ship said this over the wireless." Reported Adar as he nodded his head as a new voice began playing "All Rail-guns open fire, inform Earth we are under attack."

With the mention of the world, Earth caused the entire room full of 1,500 people to become deadly quiet.

"Now we believe this to be a slip of the tongue caused by a wireless operator not switching to internal broadcast fast enough, which is why we believe the statement," explained Adar. "The Ship which called itself the HMS Ark Royal then did a short battle with our forces and inflicted heavy damage on our forces killing around three thousand members of our armed forces before going into FTL. We were unable to reopen communication with the ship. Now I don't want to raise people's hopes since we are still in the early phases of investigation to figure out if this is really Earth or just some kind of trick by the Cylons, but speaking personally I believe that we have made contact with our lost brothers and sisters of Earth. Now some may blame Earth for this attack however from everything we have gathered we fired first and they were defending themselves, they didn't even know that they had entered our space. A full investigation will begin at once to find out who was behind the attack."

The entire room was hanging on his every word and everyone listening across the colonies where doing the same.

"I have ordered the colonial fleet to mobilize to defend our home as well as set a wall around the area of contact so that we can possibly make contact with our cousins," reported Adar as he prepared for the part of the speech he hated. "Now I will open the floor to questions."

It was traditional among the Colonies that whenever a President Addressed the Quorum that each colony could ask a question of the President in order to gain a better understanding of what was going on. It would happen in alphabetical order and as such, the head of the Aerilon delegation would be the first to ask the President about this ground breaking event in colonial history.

"Mr. President first thank you for bringing this to our attention so soon after the events and I am sure you are still trying to figure out what happened." stated the female lead representative of the mainly agricultural world of Aerilon. "However do you have any idea where our cousins are so that we can go to them and explain ourselves to them? Mistakes must have been have been made on both sides for such great loss of life to happen."

"We are working on that, they reported that the station they were setting up was an outpost for a newly founded colony; however we do not know where the colony is. We are working on that but it takes time." Explained President Adar as he turned to the next question, he had to wait a little as the old woman who was the representative of the ice world Aquaria.

"Mr. President what I don't understand is why would our cousins fire on our forces they must know that that their cousins where out there?" stated the Aquaria representative.

"True, but remember how our colony names have changed over the two thousand years since we left Kobol, your colony was once called Aquarius before becoming Aquaria. I grant it isn't that much of change but it is a difference." Reported President Adar "Also Earth left two thousand years before we left Kobol so our tribes may have different names in their holy scriptures then our current names."

"What can you tell us about how the battle took place between our fleet and our Earth cousins?" inquired the representative from Canceron

"We are still getting information about that however from what we know at the moment, we know our task group moved in and we opened fire first and somehow their ship was able to defeat our attack and returned fire with weapons of their own." stated the President, he wanted to hide the power of the Tau'ri but in time the video would be release. "The ship moved to recover a small fighter force which was deployed before we arrived and then they went into FTL and we are in the process of figuring out where they went to."

"Mr. President." Came a voice Adar knew well as the man who had once been his boss, the elderly man was the former Mayor of Caprica City before Adar and had been one of the major allies which got him into the President's office. "This name they called themselves, the Tau'ri do we have any idea where that comes from?"

"I am afraid not." admitted Adar "Our best guess is that once Earth started colonies of their own they took the name Tau'ri just as we call ourselves collectively as the 12 tribes of Kobol. Maybe Tau'ri means something in their version of the scared scrolls."

The questions followed the path he expected Gemenon asked about the amount of life lost, while Libran asked about the legal process for bringing Earth into the colonies and Picon asked about the likely hood that this was all a Cylon trick. Finally it came to the colony he least wanted to talk and the most religious of them all Sagittaron

"You have said multiple times how the holy scriptures that Earth has may be different then ours are you saying the holy scriptures are wrong?" stated the Sagittaron member in a tone of voice which was closer to a yell than anything else.

"Not at all, however we have to remember that we haven't had any contact with our cousins in four thousand years they may not even know about our exodus from Kobol in the first place," stated President Adar. "We should expect that there will be some differences between us, remember how the holy scrolls used to have different names for the Lords of Kobol such as calling Zeus, Jupiter and the like."

The Sagittaron member grumbled a bit as he sat back down, as the next colony rose to ask its question.

"Mr. President we seem to be beating around the bush so I will ask do we know where Earth could possibly be?" inquired the Scorpio member

"No we believe we know the direction the ships went since they used a method of FTL we have never seen before." explained the President "We are working on mapping out possible locations but our deep space mapping system isn't as good as it should be but we are speaking aid from the best experts in the colonies."

"Mr. President, I would like to thank you for being so honest with us." started the last colony delegate from Virgon "You have shown how our system works and I ask now what is that we can to help find Earth and reunite with our cousins?"

"Thank you, now as for finding them that is a task for the military but there is a few things that we should do to prepare for possible contact." reported President Adar. "First we must prepare for the possibility that this was a Cylon trick so I have ordered the call up of reserve forces. I have our defense protocol upgraded to level three which means more military police on the streets and viper combat patrols which may interfere with civilian life. Second is the call of reserves and the activation of some mothball ships. Now that is all that can be done on the military side at the moment, the other things that need to be addressed is what happens if we do make contact with our cousins we need to prepare to demonstrate to them our history and culture, so that integration could come more easily. I will leave that task in your hands."

"Thank you Mr. President." Stated the delegate from Virgon

"Now before we leave let us pray to the Lords of Kobol so that they can guide us." said President Adar knowing that the prayer would be the last part of the speech.

**Well I hope you liked this chapter and how I introduce people from Stargate Atlantis into the story. I have been a fan of Shepard and Teyla relationship and never liked how they just forced a relationship with someone we never really knew about. I know the actress became pregnant in real life but there had to be a better way of doing it. Now I hope you enjoyed this chapter, please keep reading Thanks Wilkins75.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7 The Unveiling**

The city that never sleeps found itself in a strange state, for the first time since Hurricane Sandy almost eight years ago in 2012 there was US National Guard soldiers in the streets. Most had no idea why they found themselves standing with their rifles slung over their backs in New York City on a perfectly clear October morning however, the high-ranking officers did know. New York was not alone there was armed Humvees sitting on the Washington Mall and other major cities across the US had similar situation as the military went on alert. This event was not just limited to the US as Russian tanks moved into defensive positions around the red square in Moscow and British military police formed a defensive line in front of Parliament. With all thirty five-member nations of the IOA going on alert it caused a domino effect as those nations not on alert went on alert and within hours, all the nations of the world had their militaries on alert.

These events could not go unnoticed, as the world media tried to figure out what was going on however all they got was no comment or a historical announcement would take place on Liberty Island in New York Harbor. Schools across the world had been closed, all none emergency related work had been canceled, even the stock market had been closed and governments had demanded airtime starting at 10:30 am Eastern Coast time US. This caused people who would not normally be paying attention to the news to turn on their TV at the approached time.

When they did all they saw as a standard looking wooden stag with a long line of flags standing on poles filling the back of the stage. Behind that, they could see the Atlantic Ocean which had been cleared of all shipping by the US navy and when the camera spun around they could see either the VIP invites most of them diplomats or military members form the countries who flags where hanging. Looming over everything was one of the major symbol of America the Statue of Liberty. The only thing that really stood out as strange was the upside V with a circle on top symbol on the podium.

When the time came the President of the United States moved toward the podium as the other world leaders gathered in front of their home nation flags.

"Thank you all for joining us on a day which will remembered as long as humans walk across the surface of the world." started the President as he took a deep breath. "Now I am here to release some information to the public of the world which has been known only to the highest levels of the United States Government and military starting in 1997. Later it shared with every nation gathered on this stage this morning."

"In 1997 the United States Military learned that not only where we not alone in the universe but our own history isn't what we thought it was. Yes, humanity is not alone and we have made contact with people not from this world. We are not even the first race call the Earth home." stated the President as the scrolling news alert which appeared under him on all the news flashed that message. "Hundreds of thousands of years ago, when our ancestors where only just learning how to make fire our world was the home operation for a race we call the Ancients. Now the Ancients where a lot like us in fact we are considered by some other races in the galaxy to be the second evolution of their form. They explored this galaxy and nurtured life however their greatest achievement was the building of what we call the Stargate network."

The President paused for a moment as he let the people process the information.

"The Stargate is a transportation device which when active creates a stable wormhole between itself and another Stargate located in the network allowing almost instant transportation between any two points. This network basically acts like a roadway covers not only our galaxy but countless others but we have only really explored two." stated the President "With this the United States began exploring later joined by the other nations of the alliance here. While we were exploring we discovered countless trues about our own past which are too numerous to share here, but I will share the major points."

"Sometime we don't know when the date but it was sometime turning the time of the ancient Egypt a alien from a race we call the Goa'uld discovered Earth. The Goa'uld are snake like race that invades a body and takes it over the enslaves the victim. Soon others of their races came and posed as the gods of the ancient world." stated the President "He and other Goa'uld took people from Earth and seeded them across the stars to worship them as Gods and work as slaves. Some point the people of Earth rebelled and pushed them off our world and buried the Stargate where we found it before World War II."

People where having a hard time believing what they were hearing, however since it was coming from the United States President and since he was surrounded by other world leaders caused them to believe it.

"Once we began expoloring the Galaxy we came into contact with this still much more advanced race of aliens and a war began. A war, thanks to countless men and women we won. Not only are the Goa'uld defeated but countless worlds and the people who had lived on them as slaves are now free." stated the President "Now we didn't just go to war the gate has brought many wondrous achievements to our little piece of the galaxy. Cures for cancer, aids and heart dieses has all come from the gate, the new power grid which is producing clean energy came from the gate and all the technology we are using to fix the errors we have done to our own world came from the gate."

The roar of engines caused a few people to look up as the President mentally cursed; the military was a few seconds early.

"Flying over our heads right now is the primary space interceptor fighter the F-302 Eagle Interceptor. Each of them are capable of both atmosphere and space combat and we have hundreds in our current arsenal with more planned." Stated the President of the United States as a flight of thirty-five Eagles came from over the ocean and did a low swoop of the Liberty Island and the surrounding area. There was an Eagle from each of the member nations. As the Eagles patrolled the sky another flight of thirty five aircraft

"Now this is the close ground support aircraft the A-305 Osprey Attack Bombers." Stated the President as the Ospreys flew lower and slower than the Eagles since they were designed to do so. The Eagles and Ospreys kept circling for about a minute before forming up into six wings before leaving New York Airspace. Next came in a flight of Condor Bombers which flew higher than their the Ospreys or the Eagles, and they didn't circle instead they did a fly by as the President introduced them. The next bird to make an appearance was the S-306 Owls which flew overhead and two of which even hovered on the sides of the gathered crowd before coming in for a landing so that the press could get a better view of the ships.

All eyes were on the sky as dark shapes appeared on the horizon coming from the same direction that the aircraft had. However these ships where far bigger, everyone eyes widened and by now massive crowds had gathered on the shoreline and looking out of high rise office buildings.

"People of Earth I present to you four of sixty seven strong fleet of intergalactic vessels." stated the President "The Lead vessel is of the Daedalus class Battlecruiser and is the backbone of our fleet, behind it is the Galahad Destroyer, next comes the Archimedes class science vessel and finally the largest vessel is the Hadrian constructor ship."

The news media was having difficulty deciding what to focus on first as the camera zoomed in and out on the different ships. They were so focus on the ships hovering over the harbor that no one noticed the six larger ships coming from the same direction until the President spoke up.

"And now to introduce the six most powerful ships ever produced by human hands the five battleships and the first carrier which along with others which will be built in the near future will assure humanity place among the stars." stated the President as the cameras turned on the six massive ships which had entered the harbor. "These ships are under the command of one of the five full time members of the UN secrecy council with the United States having the only carrier."

The five battleships looked to at first glance to sword like in shape, they had a long body which lead to a slightly rounded point in the front while in the back it spread out a bit so that engines and relatively small hangers in comparison to the ship as a whole was located. Poking out of the ship where massive three barreled turrets similar to the ones that used to be on their ocean-going cousins only taken to the next level in size and range. Also located on the ship where small gun emplacements and multiple missile launchers. While not as impressive, looking as the guns each battleship also had eight standard Asgard beam weapons and two of the Ancient beam weapons, which was more power with a longer range but took more time to cool down. Also located onboard where multiple pods for full of Earths version of the ancient drone weapon system.

While having a different function it was clear that the same team which had designed the carried that had designed the Battleship. Like the battleship the carrier had a somewhat sword like appearance however while only the last ¼ of the battleship was larger over half of the carrier was larger than the central column. The Battleship only had two small hangers only about the size of those on the Daedalus class while the Carrier had four hangers each three times the size of those on the Daedalus class. Also located along the bottom of the carrier where small drop hangers where marines or soldiers could load up into assault ships for mass combat drops. The carrier lacked the large heavy guns but it did have missile tubes and four Asgard and a single ancient beam weapons.

"Before you are the Missouri class Battleships and the Yorktown class Carrier." Stated the President "Before you are the Battleship USS Missouri which is the namesake of the class, next to her is the HMS Britannia, the Kursk of the Russian Military, the FS Napoleon of the French navy and lastly is the Long Chun of the People Liberation Army Air force. The only current carrier at the moment is the USS Yorktown."

It was not hard for anyone to figure out which ship belonged to which nation since each one had the flag of their nation engraved on the haul of the ships.

"Over the next couple of days these ships and others in out fleet will be visiting different cities across the world and will be open for media and civilian tours." Explained the President before looking toward his right and three men and one woman dressed in the dress uniform of the United States Air Force, along with them where three men dressed in suits and two women who were also dressed for the occasion. "Allow me to personally introduce some people who were key players in saving Earth multiple times. General Jack O'Neill was the head of the main team called SG1 who went through the stargate to discover multiple worlds and saved Earth multiple times over. He is now the supreme commander of all off world forces."

With that Jack O'Neill stepped forward as the camera flashes where almost blinding him.

"Next is General Samantha Carter who was second in command of SG1 and was instrumental in countless situations and who is currently in command of Stargate Command here on Earth." Stated the President as Samantha stepped forward as she thanked God for the dark sunglasses which protected her eyes from the flashes.

"The civilian member of SG1 is Doctor Daniel Jackson who thanks to his knowledge in archeology and ancient languages has helped us unlock the mystery of the Ancients and other races across the galaxy." Stated the President "And beside him is a man who isn't even from Earth but has saved Earth multiple times, Teal'c was a warrior for our first enemy but turned his back on them so that he could gain freedom for his people, freedom which they now have."

"Two members of SG1 who couldn't be with us today is Colonel Cameron Mitchell and Vala Mal Doran who are currently on assignment." stated the President "The next group which needs to be addressed is the counterpart to SG1 in our operations which take place in the Pegasus Galaxy in the Ancient's city Atlantis called SGA."

"The team was led by General John Sheppard who before his promotion to commander of all forces in Pegasus Galaxy was the leader of the team who explored a whole new galaxy and helped us push an enemy called the Wraith back." Stated the President of John Sheppard stepped up. "Beside him is his wife Teyla Emmagan who like Teal'c is native to a whole different world then Earth has done bare work to protect Earth and her own home galaxy."

"Lastly is Doctor Rodney McKay and Ronon Dex who have done amazing work putting their special skills to use to deal series blows to the Wraith. Doctor McKay has used his brain and his years of formal education in Canada to help unlock the new technology which will shape the future." explained the President "And Ronon is a harden warrior who has put his skills at our serves and has proven to be a loyal and valuable member of our off world forces."

"In time the actions of these brave people and others like them will come to light and future generations will look on their actions with pride." Stated the President as he turned toward the group and started clapping. At once the other world leaders and others began clapping once it stopped the President turned back to the cameras. "This is a day that the world will never forget and it will mark a turning point in human history."

**An hour and a half later, the world was still trying to wrap its mind around what they had just learned while the high ranking delegates where enjoying a private lunch in the UN building.** All around the leaders of thirty-five nations and their families where talking about the events of the day while members of SG1 and SGA1 meet and talked. News members moved through the crowed trying to get interviews and representatives from governments who are not currently part of the alliance of the Gate where trying to gather information as well.

"So why didn't Michael and Vala come?" inquired Shepard to General Carter as the two of them got in line for the long buffet. It had almost every kind of upscale food anyone could imagine and all the very best of that.

"Well Michael is holding down the Fort at the SGC and Vala…" started Carter as she tried to find words.

"Could you imagine what she would have done with the press of the world in front of her?" answered Daniel who got in line behind Shepard both of them waiting for the smoked pork to be cut by a chief.

"Well we told her that we needed two members of the SG1 at the SGC just in case." explained Carter "But yes what Daniel said is the real reason."

"I can understand that?" stated Shepard as he looked around at all the news people taking photos as if the end of the world was coming at any moment.

"I wonder when people will get used to the idea of all this?" inquired Daniel as he looked up at the floating spaceships.

"Maybe in a few months it is a lot to dump on people all at once. We had years to absorb it all." admitted Carter "We haven't even told them about the Replicators, the ORI, Ascension or all the times Earth was almost destroyed."

"True." stated Daniel

"Well I don't know about you all but I am recording all the news networks just so that I can see what they all say." laughed Shepard as he kept on eating.

**Almost half away across the galaxy away from the party the Odyssey left subspace and entered normal space in a flood of blue light and instantly the ancient cloak activated as the ship disappeared from all known types of detection system.** The mission of the Odyssey was as simple as it was important, to recon the likely home system of these colonials. They had scouted the area of the battle only to see fifteen of these colonial ships in the area taking part in a massive recover operation of their destroyed ships. Once the system was confirmed to be colonial, the next step was to find out what sort of trouble they had gotten themselves into and why the colonials had attacked them in the first place.

"Colonel Lorne we have reached our destination and we are cloaked." Reported the second officer a major as the former second in command of Atlantis Military force now turned commander of arguable the most valuable ship in the growing fleet looked out the window at the void of space. However it wasn't a void there was a glow from a rather large star directly in front of the ship. "We are just out of target system and ready to begin the operation."

"Good, let's go see what we can see." ordered Colonel Lorne as the Odyssey moved toward the target system "Show me a map of the system."

Instantly a map of the system appeared on a small holographic table located behind the command chair. Colonel Lorne looked down at the map, there was seven planets in the system with a large asteroid belt separating the inner five from the outer two. The thing that stuck out to him was the fact that two of the planets each as large as Earth were orbiting around each other just as much as they were the sun. One of the outer planets seemed to be a gas giant and the other seemed to be slightly larger than Pluto. The inner planets is what was interesting to him four out of the five where in the habitual range and could support life.

In fact they did and seconds after he got the map of the system, he Odyssey began picking up the ships and there was a lot of them. They were traveling mostly between the four habitual planets with the heaviest traffic between the two binary planets.

"Sir, I am getting multiple ship classes," stated the radar operator "Attempting to ID the general class so we can figure out what they are."

"Are we getting radio transmissions?" inquired Lorne

"We are getting TV transmissions." corrected his second officer "Judging from these I can confirm this is a colonial system."

"How can you be sure?" inquired Lorne as his second command tapped a small interactive screen on the table.

"Welcome back to the Colonial News Network and we are going to go over the top news about battle between the Colonial Navy and the unknown ship which claimed to be from Earth." stated an anchor woman, before Lorne's second in command muted the screen.

"How do they know about Earth?" inquired Lorne

"Unknown sir, we are still gathering information judging from the different civilian news channels we are getting I can name the four habitual planets." Stated the second officer as the names of the worlds appeared over the inner planets.

"So we have Caprica, Gemenon, Picon and Tauron." stated Lorne "Interesting names but where are the other colonies, there are supposed to be 12 colonies of this Kobol?"

"There are three other star systems within a quarter of a light year," reported the long range radar operator "Best guess they are there."

"Sir I got the ship count and you are not going to believe this but I have over 900 ships moving back and forth between these planets and almost a quarter of them are warships. I am not even counting what fighter patrols, manned satellites or mining ships working the asteroid belt," stated the Operator as the two higher officers blinked. "And they have some massive suckers when it comes to ships and orbital stations some of them as large as our battleships."

"Damn." Cursed Colonel Lorne as the map updated to show all the ships moving back and forth. A few seconds after that the thousands of smaller stations and satellites appeared on the sensors as well, in the end it was the most crowed system the Tau'ri had ever seen. "Have they spotted us?"

"No sign of it sir, I have access to what seems to be their civilian radio traffic but their military is encrypted it will take some time." Reported Communications as the holographic table activated and a map of the nearest world appeared.

"Look at all those ships." Stated the second officer "And all of this within 200 light years of Valhalla. That is so close, how could we have missed this?"

"Worry about that later, I am more interested in this." Stated Colonel Lorne as he pointed four long lines of large stations which sat in high orbit around the planet. "This has to be some kind of defense line and we need to get inside it to get a better scan of the planet but if they detect us then it could be over."

"Sir I was wrong those aren't defense stations they are warships." reported an officer as he looked out the window at the massive ship which sat dead in the water a few hundred yards away from him. "But why are they just sitting there, the life sign detector says there are only fifty people on board."

"I see, very clever." stated Colonel Lorne as his XO blinked "These must be older model ships, kind of like how we mothball our old ocean going warships on Earth however instead of having them sitting around waiting to be scrapped or called back into active duty they make them their defense line. Put a small crew onboard, just enough to man the guns and some other systems and boom you have an instant defense line but one that could be called upon to be a warship again."

"Maybe sir we should report this?" offered up the communication officer

"Not yet, I don't want to risk them picking up any of our broadcasts." explained Colonel Lorne "Besides we need more information we only have good data on this planet here and if their own name is anything to go by there are 12 worlds. We need to find them and gain more information, I want as much information as we can get but keep a path for hyperspace open so that we can run."

"Yes, sir." confirmed the XO

**As the Odyssey was heading into the 12 colonies of Kobol scanning everything it could a meeting was taking place far away from the worlds.** The wall of the room was made out of chrome and a large table sat in the middle of the room. The table had twelve seats however only seven of them had people sitting at them. If a colonial or even a Tau'ri had entered the room they would have only seen seven normal looking people sitting down at the table, three of them where women and four where men. These people where in fact not human these where the humanoid Cylons which ran the Cylon empire.

"I thought Earth was a myth?" stated one of the two blonde women, this one wore a red cocktail dress and was the sixth humanoid Cylon model "D'Anna could this be a fake?"

"Possible." Admitted the second blonde, she was third model and was more modest then the sexual sixth model. "However one of my copies was filming the battle and she heard it herself. This could really be Earth."

"If this Earth then we have to handle this fast," stated the clean shaven man who wore a simple blue button down shirt and pants, he was the fifth model of the humanoid Cylons "We should launch our attack now."

"Five, I am with you that the humans need to be destroyed but we haven't gained access to the colonial defense network yet. In all the computer programs of the war we lose 48% of those and that isn't even taking into account the new level of alert the military will be on now yet alone Earth." stated D'Anna "No it isn't the time, we need more information and more time."

"Then what do you recommend?" inquired the dark skinned man who was the fourth cylon model as he rested his chin on top of his knuckles "The arrival of Earth changes everything, we have a whole new colony to deal with. Judging from what just one of their ships did we can't take them lightly, they may be an even greater threat then the Colonials."

"Colonies." corrected D'Anna "This Ark Royal Captain said they were setting up a defense station for a new colony. Earth has been separated from the colonies for four thousand years they could have dozens of worlds under their control and we haven't even talked about their weapons, if the colonials get those we don't stand a chance?"

"Do we know this colony is?" inquired the five, unlike the Colonials the Cylons had journey beyond the Cylon Colonial DMZ and knew of worlds that the colonials didn't . Even then, most of the worlds they had taken as factory worlds where clear on the other side of Colonial space from where the battle happened.

"From the video it appears that they use a different form of FTL then the colonials, their ships enter some kind of energy vortex and then pick up a lot of speed before disappearing into it." Explained D'Anna as the video played "Assuming that they have to go in a straight line we believe that the planet they are on may be Kobol itself."

"Kobol." spat the five as he made the word a curse "We should have nuked it when we found it all those years ago, turn it into a radioactive waste just to spit in the face of the colonials so called Gods."

"Now, this may prove to be of a great befit to us." stated the first humanoid cylon ever made, an older man with a simple black shirt and a hat on. "We know where they are we can launch an attack and end them once and for all."

"That is foolish, Cavil." countered the six "You have seen their weapons why go after them?"

"Because they are humans or did you forget what they did to us!" snapped the five as he slammed his hand on the table "They enslaved us."

"Yes the humans of the 12 colonies of Kobol did, not Earth they have done nothing to us so why commit the sin of murder before the eyes of God when it isn't justified." countered Six as she crossed her legs "Besides this may be a blessing."

"How so?" inquired D'Anna interested by the six's tone of voice.

"Sister, do you remember your history of the 3rd and 4th Tauron World War?" inquired the Six as D'Anna smiled.

"Well that is an idea." said D'Anna with a grin "Yes, that could work."

"Will someone fill the rest of us in?" inquired Cavil as the first model threw his hands up in frustration.

"The 3rd and 4th Tauron World War was won by the weakest nation on Tauron." noted the six "And do you know how?"

"Do we care?" snapped the Five

"Because they got the other nations to destroy each other and once they had used up all their strength they came in and defeated them all." noted D'Anna "That is why we care, we should take a page out of their own book."

"Yes…" said Cavil with a smile as he got what the six was putting on the table "Why should we fight Earth and the Colonies, we should have them fight each other."

"But how?" inquired the Five

"We could use the belief in their false Gods against them." offered Cavil "The main reason they never went searching for Kobol was because they believed it to be a sin against their false Gods, if their cousins have taken Kobol we can use that to drive them to war."

"This could work but it could bring them together, a reunion on Kobol could be played as a sign by their gods." stated the Five

"They have had no contact between each other in 4,000 years there has to be something we can do to force a wedge between them. We just need to find out how and then set the stage for that to happen." stated the Six "We will need to drop a few more copies into areas where they would be the most useful, most of all the deep space telescope program the colonials have."

"One of my copies is head of the program already," stated the Fourth "That is how we have been able to hide our ships from their deep space telescopes."

"Still there is going to be a massive effort to find Earth now, you will need help to stay on top of everything." stated Cavil as he thought about which copy could be sent as backup. Eight and three where out, Eight was in the military force which had made contact with Earth and could be brought in as an eyewitness. Three was a well known newswoman to have a copy show up suddenly couldn't be explain, same was true for the five who was part of the secretary of education staff and known to government officials. He himself was too old to play the part which meant it was down to either a two or a six. Both could play the part easy enough but what would get the most bang for his money.

"Six, has your copy talked to this Baltar about her family?" inquired Cavil

"I don't think so, last we heard he was more interested in the thing between our legs then anything else." Stated the six "Our spy believes she could have total access to the military network in two to three weeks or so, it is all about trust and we can't rush it. Then again this was before the arrival of Earth.'"

"What about the one in colonial fleet shipyard?" added Cavil

"Basically the same only switch Baltar with Vice Admiral Cain." Reported the six

"Make sure about what they have told their loves and if they know nothing then your spy just got another identical sisters who is a top researcher and another who works at the shipyard, they may run into each other now." stated Cavil as he looked to the four.

"Sure, I can fudge the data make her a fresh out of grad school research assistant who did some field work somewhere isolated for some time." Confirmed the four

"Good and who knows maybe having three sixes around will cut down the time we need to get into Doctor Baltar's files and gain another advantage over our enemies." Confirmed Cavil as the six grinned a bit at the idea.

**Well I hope you liked this chapter and how I did the unveiling of the Stargate program to the world. As for the numbers of ships the colonials have I will be going into that in a later chapter but for a general rule I took how many warships the United States, UK, Russia and China have in the real world and times it by 12 so the number will be very high. Now until next time please keep reading, thanks Wilkins75. **


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8 The News**

"Welcome back and like every other news station we are going the startling revelation about the Stargate program and the intergalactic fleet that now belongs to the member nations of the Tau'ri." started CNN anchor Anderson Cooper. As he stood in front of a camera behind him was a view of the five battleships and the single carrier over New York City. Those ships were only two hours away from heading to their national capitals. "Over the past few hours we have received word from the nations not involved in the 35 member nation group they range from Indonesia which is pushing for membership into the Tau'ri and North Korea who is calling for the removal of the Stargate from its unknown location and placed into their custody."

"Now legal and diplomatic experts Mary Reed and Joseph Langley have gone over the documents for membership into the Tau'ri and they join us now," said Anderson as the screen split to show an African American woman and an older white man. "Now Mary Reed what is it about this founding document that sticks out to you?"

"Well first thank you for having me on this historic night." said Mary "Now as for what stuck out to me it is how much it is like the bill of rights we have in the US but yet how it is very different."

"How so?" inquired Anderson.

"We can kiss goodbye to the freedom of the press." said Mary as Anderson blinked.

"It puts limits on the freedom of the Press?" inquired Anderson

"Yes, they are and it un-American that they do so." yelled Mary as she threw her hands in the air.

"Anderson if I may." stated Joseph as he interrupted the two.

"Yes, Joseph." confirmed Anderson

"I believe that Mary does not fully understand the limits that this document is putting on the press," stated Joseph "They put in very strict rules for what the press can release."

"And what rules are those?" inquired Anderson

"Basically it stops media from releasing information that could harm the citizens of the member nations." stated Joseph "Basically it the press can't release information on troop movements in times of war or designs for weapons. We don't want someone to build a homemade teleportation beam to transport a WMD somewhere we wouldn't want it."

"Still it is putting a limit on the free press," snapped Mary as Joseph nodded his head.

"True but it is so narrowly defined that I see no real issue arising from it and I find that other nations are giving up far more in this then we are." stated Joseph "Look at China for example they have to allow freedom of religion or as it says in the documents freedom of and from religion."

"Some have said this is the first step toward a global government, do either of you believe this is true?" inquired Anderson

"On some levels but I would say it is more like an intergalactic UN with a military arm made out of all member nations." Stated Joseph "They did a federal system, with a general assembly of all member nations and a smaller council of 15 nations of which the big eight of US, China, Great Britain, France, Russia, Germany, India and Brazil as permanent members with the rest on a rotating base. The head of the general assembly will be elected by the Assembly with the head of the smaller council being the leader of one of the permanent members of the council who serves a four year term before handing over to the next."

"I agree that the system they came up with is a hybrid of the UN general assembly and the federal system we have in the United States however I am worried about having United States soldiers, Sailors and Airman under the command of another nation," stated Mary in almost a yell. "They even have official languages which all students in the US will have to learn at least three of them."

"Once again Mary is leaving out simple facts." said Joseph "First one of those languages is English and then students in the US will have to learn two of the other seven and a third if they join the military."

"And what languages are those?" inquired Anderson

"Besides English, we are talking about Chinese, Spanish, Russian, French, Arabic or German." stated Joseph "My granddaughter high school has had three out of the six foreign nation languages in her school for twenty plus years. Besides look at the Japanese government they are making all of their students learn four of the seven languages on top of Japanese, we got off lucky there."

**While the debate about the unmasking of the Stargate was happening on Earth, the reunifications of the short firefight between a colonial fleet and a single Tau'ri vessel was hitting Vice Admiral Cain as she sat in a Raptor on its way to Capital building**. She looked down at the small pad of papers on which she had lied out her defense. Ever since she had returned to the colonies after the President's speech about the possible return of Earth, she had been attacked in the press for her actions. Most of the tv experts on the seven of the eight major news networks have been calling for her to be imprisoned or at least stripped of her rank. Only the news network based on her home world of Tauron was supporting her actions, somewhat.

As the Raptor touched down on the concreate pad located to the side of the building, she stood up crouching a little. Finally, the side door opened and she stepped out into the sunlight, instantly there was dozens of cameras flashing in her face as she straightened her uniform.

"Admiral Cain, do you have any words for the men and women you led to their deaths." Yelled a voice of some reporter as Admiral Cain marched past them and entered the side door to the Capital building of the twelve colonies. She did not waste a moment as she walked down the marble hall and entered the audience chamber, there waiting for her where three members of the Colonial Military Disciplinary Core or CMDC. They would be her judge and jury when it came to military matters however the room was packed as high-ranking members of the Quorum along with members of the press gathered in the room.

"Vice Admiral Helena Cain, thank you for coming today." said the CMDC main Judge, the Judge was an Admiral herself which showed important this hearing was. "I am sure you know why you are here but just for the record we are here to find out why you fired on this Tau'ri vessel which caused the destruction of three ships and the crippling of your own battlestar and the cost of 3,187 souls."

"I thank you for giving me a chance to answer the questions the people have about my actions and the steps which lead up to the events which cost too many lives." stated Admiral Cain "Now should I start at the begin?"

"We have already had Commander Adama of the battlestar Galactica and he has explained the events leading up to the conflict and how one of his raptors spotted the two ships and he reported to you and from there you ordered an assault." stated the second Judge "Do you wish to counter that?"

"No, Commander Adama recognition of our conversions seems to be correct," confirmed Admiral Cain as the Judges nodded their head.

"Alright then can you please describe why you felt it was needed to launch an attack on the ships?" inquired the third judge

"From all the information we had this was a Cylon force setting up a launch point to strike at our homes, I couldn't let them finish that base and since we had them outnumbered I believed that we could win with ease." explained Admiral Cain "I had the best interest of the 12 colonies of Kobol in mind."

"Did you?" stated the third judge "Vice Admiral we have looked over your military record and while you have served with high honors graduating top of your class in both the military academy on Tauron and the Colonial Officer School, your instructors raised a lot of red flags."

"I do not know what you mean." stated Cain defiantly as the third judge looked down at her papers.

"This is a direct quote from Commander Juest of the Medusa the first man you served under." stated the third Judge "While Helen Cain is by far the most driven and hardworking young officer I have ever seen in decades I have been in the uniform. I have major concerns over her mental state. She seems to have tunnel vision and a deep drive for revenge against the Cylons, she has been reported as slapping lower ranking officers and enlisted members of the crew. None of these reports has been proven but there is enough for me to recommend her for mental review and possible discharge from the military. I can't recommend her for any command of any kind."

Admiral Cain simply glared at the judge as she finished reading, that look went across the 12 colonies and almost everyone agreed what it meant. Given a chance, Vice Admiral Cain would have killed the judge herself.

"Tell me Admiral Cain were you blinded by your hate of the Cylons that even after the Tau'ri offered to take down the station and leave that you had to open fire? Are you blind?" inquired the third judge as the cameras zoomed in on Admiral Cain, who still had bandages over her wounds.

"I am not blind, I believed it to be a trick and that they were buying time to call in reinforcements and then we will would be outnumbered," stated Cain as yet another question was thrown at her.

**While Admiral Cain was being chewed out by the three judges the news reporters on Earth was having a field day with all the information coming out of the Stargate Program**. All the new technology, stories of battles across galaxies and the information that aliens had taken up the name of ancient Gods and Goddess so that they could enslave human populations across the galaxy was just too much to take in all at once. There had to be fluff pieces to make it easier for the public to wrap their mind around the ideas. So they turned to more human related news stories about life on Valhalla. The IOA public relations people had foreseen this happening and had allowed about two dozen reporters from major networks to come to Valhalla a week early to film and report stories from the planet.

So networks such as CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, BBC, ABC, Al Jazerra and others had been given almost full access to Valhalla and since there was just too many stories to cover the news teams did something almost unheard of, they worked together sharing stories and reports. It was because of that a reporter who was normally one Fox found himself doing a live broadcast on CNN.

"So Mike it must be strange to be on another planet?" inquired Anderson to former white house Correspondent Mike Emanuel.

"It is indeed very strange." said Mr. Emanuel as the multiple broadcast stations set up between Earth and Valhalla which allowed for delays of only a few seconds in live transmissions. "However there are a few things which have stuck out to me about this place."

"Such as?" inquired Anderson

"Well I personally found the six massive bays where they have already started construction of three more aircraft carriers and three more battleships amazing but maybe it was the animal lover in me which found Project Noah the most interesting," stated Mike

"Project Noah?" inquired Anderson

"Basically it is like Noah's ark from the bible turns out the Asgard when they first came to Earth took DNA sample of thousands of animals species and not just from one animal but from hundreds of breading pairs. They even did brain scans of the animals," explained Mike "Using Asgard cloning technology the scientists here have cloned these animals' memories in all and introduced them into the wild here. I saw massive herds of American buffalo running across the grasslands and Siberian tigers moving though the mountain forests."

"What about native wild life?" inquired Anderson

"Turns out this world was pretty much a blank slate, the researchers believe that about two thousand years ago either a nuclear exchange about on the same scale equal to an exchange between United States and the Soviet Union in the 1980s. The radiation is gone now and planet life is back to normal but large animal life hasn't returned, that would have taken a few more million years." Explained Mr. Emanuel "In eight years the two largest land animals that we have found here a type of deer called the silver tail about the size of a white tail only their antlers don't fall off and a big cat the general size of a cougar only with black and grey strips like a tiger. Since it likes to hunt at night, they call it a shadow cat."

While Emanuel was talking images of the animals such as the Shadow Cat, the silver tail deer and most of all images of the Earth native animals which now called Valhalla home crossed the screens of the CNN.

"Those are some beautiful animals," noted Anderson as the still images turned to video of Sperm whales breaching the surface of the water followed by massive herds of Zebras.

"They sure all and the plan is to give these animals free feign over a land mass the size of Asia." Reported Mike as the image changed to a map of Valhalla, overall the planet had three landmasses but only two where habitual the third one was like Antarctica covered with ice only this one was on the North pole. The other two where each about the size of Asia and Europe combined, one was thin and narrow and went almost all the way between the North and South Pole while the other wrapped around the central part of the world. They are separate by a narrow sea, which was so narrow that plans were already in the work for a bridge. "Besides for a few naturalist and a large open military training field the size of Texas the animals have the rest to themselves."

"A single army base, the size of Texas?" inquired Anderson

"It is an training center for armored movements and considering they have the rest of the land mass to themselves there shouldn't be an issue." reported Mike with a smile, meanwhile on his normal network Fox was doing a piece on Disney World Valhalla with the help of a reporter from CNN.

**Far away from Valhalla Colonel Lorne was discussing what the Odyssey had found with the Earth High command and the IOA.** Over the past few hours, the Odyssey had passed through the four systems, which these colonials claimed as their own. It would have been difficult to locate all the worlds but thanks to the news broadcasts, coming from the multiple news channels had helped the Odyssey find them.

"So there are really twelve worlds?" inquired the French IOA member who has having this conference even though he really wanted to be the huge party taking place around the Eiffel Tower.

"Most of the population lives on the 12 major worlds but there is about another twenty smaller settlements on smaller planets or large asteroids which range in size to a few thousands to only a hundred people." Explained Colonel Lorne

"And they have all these warships?" inquired General O'Neill who was in fact sitting in the White House Situation Room with the President. Above them, a massive lawn party was being held for the elites of Washington. All around the city the government had set up massive parties as the USS Missouri floated over the Mall. There was a whole 4th of July feel in the city as there was plans for fireworks in the sky and examples of the new military equipment sitting on the mall for people to see. People seemed to be more interested in the Stargate then afraid.

"Yes, General however our warships appear to outmatch them almost every way, we killed over three thousands of their people." reported Lorne "They are freaking out about the idea about Earth, it is all over their media."

"How do they know about Earth?" inquired the President

"The bridge crew of the Ark Royal wasn't fast enough to switch to internal communication and they heard the order to send a message to Earth about the attack." explained Colonel Lorne "It happens but the strangest thing is that they believe Earth is one of their sister colonies."

"One of their colonies?" inquired the Chinese's IOA member, China had also been very peaceful with the unmasking of the Stargate and military parades had been scheduled to take place in multiple cities in a few hours. The biggest worry was North Korea who was making all kinds of noise about the gate and having a South Korean warship floating over Seoul was making them very upset. All the world leaders knew North Korea would have to be taken care of in some way. Most of the other nations where strangely calm, the third world nations where already asking for access to the new technology to help their people. Multiple other nations where already applying to join the thirty-five members of the Tau'ri.

"Yes, they believe all humanity which to them is only their twelve worlds plus Earth all came from someplace called Kobol." explained Colonel Lorne "There they lived with the Gods until Earth left 4,000 years ago and they left 2,000 years after that."

"Well we know that isn't true," stated General O'Neill "What Gods do they worship?"

"Greek sir, Zeus and the like," reported Colonel Lorne

"They could be slaves which rebelled and buried the gate like we did in Egypt," offered up O'Neill "However there is no way to know for sure without direct contact."

"Are they a threat?" inquired the President

"Yes, but from we have seen we are technology more powerful they have numbers but they do not know where we are and they have some kind of hyperspace technology which while fast is very short range." explained Colonel Lorne "It would take them decades to reach Earth if they knew where it was."

"How do you know?" inquired the President

"We beamed one our technician onboard one of their mothball ships and in its engine room it had a mass FTL range," explained Colonel Lorne

"And Valhalla?" inquired the Russian IOA

"Five Days or so." answered Colonel Lorne "And they want to find us baddy, they will look for us if we don't come back."

"Mr. President it may be far better if we arrange a meeting then to have them show up in Valhalla and have another firefight only over our own world," offered up Jack as the President leaned back in his seat. He had been selected to be the chairperson of the Tau'ri government for the next two years and then it would switch to the Brazilian President for two years. The Chairmanship would be rotated among China, Russia, France, Germany, India and Great Britain before coming back to the US to do it all over again.

"Alright you have a green light for an arrange contact." said the President as the members of the IOA on the line agreed with the move.

**It took just under an half an hour of the Odyssey to find the perfect spot for their appearance it was on the far side of the massive gas giant which the colonials called Zeus.** No colonial vessel was in visual range and that was the most important as they deactivate the ancient cloaked. At once, the Odyssey was detected by the colonial Dradis system and alarms began going off.

"They know we are here," reported the radio operator "Multiple of their warships are heading toward us."

"Make sure we have an escape route." ordered Colonel Lorne as he moved out from behind Zeus and into a position where he could see the colonial worlds of Caprica and Gemenon, the other two worlds in the system where on the other side of the sun. All power had already been sent to the shields and both Asgard beam weapons where ready as well as missiles and rail guns.

A few thousand kilometers away from the Odyssey, the Caprica Planetary News had one of their news raptors filming a flight of vipers on patrol for some background images during the news. Once they saw the strange ship on Dradis they moved their cameras toward the ship. With that, the image of the Odyssey appearing from behind the gas giant of Zeus was broadcast across the colonies. The ship came to a stop just waited, as the more massive colonial ships got closer and closer to it.

Suddenly the image changed to a middle age man with dark hair sitting on a strange chair in what appeared to be a CIC of some kind. All around him different man and women where operating computers and behind him was a large table of some kind.

"Attention colonial vessels this is Colonel Lorne of the United States of America Air force and commander of the Tau'ri Vessel USS Odyssey." said the man, the Odyssey had begun to broadcast on the news networks and simply took it over for the moment. "We have been sent by the United Nations of Earth to establish contact with your people so that we could hopefully avoid the conflict that began a few days ago when vessels from both our people exchanged shots."

"USS Odyssey this is President Adar of the 12 colonies of Kobol." came President Adar's voice over the wireless "We wish to make contact with your people so that we can avoid the misunderstandings which caused us to shot at each other."

"That is great news Mr. President," said Colonel Lorne as he stood up on his bridge. "However we are only a recon ship with military personal only onboard, with your permission a first contact diplomatic team will be dispatched along with a small protective task force of seven ships to make official contact with your people."

"That would be great." said President Adar "When?"

"According to our readings your day on Caprica is 26 hours long on our scale, they will be here in twelve of your days," explained Colonel Lorne "Is that acceptable?"

"Yes, more than enough." stated President Adar wishing that these Tau'ri would arrive sooner than that, he didn't want to deal with all the press which would build up to that day but if it took 12 days for their team to arrive he wasn't going to close the door on them.

"Excellent, we will arrive at this location and please leave the space behind us open we have a different FTL then yours." advised Colonel Lorne

"Of course." said President Adar "I speak for all the colonies of Kobol when I say we look forward to the day that our people can meet face to face."

"As do our leaders Mr. President, until then." noted Colonel Lorne as the broadcast came to a stop and the image changed back to the video broadcast of the Odyssey in space. For a while, none of the news reporters spoke up as they watched the Odyssey turn so that it faced away from the Colonies. Then a blue vortex opened up in front of the ship and it shot forward, seconds after it had disappeared the vortex closed and normal space returned. For a moment or two the news broadcasters where stunned and then finally they started talking again about the news. Within moments, people in the graphic departments of all the news organizations had a clock running down to Earths return. Little did they know that the Odyssey had only gone outside colonial space and cloaked before returning to Colonial space.

**Well I hope you liked this chapter, I would like to thank everyone who reviewed and I ask that you keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9 Prepare**

The colonial press was going into full overdrive as they studied every little bit of information that they could gather about the arrival of lost tribe of Earth. The news media had zoomed in and had gotten photos of the Odyssey and they had brought in their military experts most of whom where former Generals or Admirals to study the ship. Their experts where going over all the details from the size of what appeared to be hangers on the side of the ship and what seemed to be windows in the haul of the ship. Then they had experts to study the image that the Odyssey had broadcasted to the Colonies, they did everything from the height of Colonel Lorne to the lay out of the command center of the Odyssey.

"Wow these people are almost as worst as our own media," noted the watch officer on the Odyssey, they had made contact with them five hours earlier and they had not stopped yet. Once they kept the Breaking News warning flashing across the screen even though by now there was likely hardly a soul in the 12 colonies who did not know what had happened. "It is kind of like watching a rerun; they keep repeating the same thing over and over again."

"Consider yourself lucky, you get the Caprice news I have to listen to these Sagittaron news and all they are talking about his the religious side of things," stated another watch officer, there were fifteen of them all gathered in a large room with multiple screens set up on the central table. The main job the officers were to listen to the news reports and government/military radio broadcasts to gather more information.

"What are they talking about?" inquired the woman listen to the military broadcasts.

"Mostly about some ancient scrolls they have about the reunion of their lost colony of Earth and some ceremonies that has to be done." laughed the one listening to the Sagittaron news. "Religion is going to be a major issue, maybe even worst then what we expected."

"How so, apart from the ORI we have had no real issue with religion with the other worlds we have made contact with," inquired the head officer the only one not listening to a broadcast.

"Well Sir, I they had what seem to be their faith's version of a Catholic Cardinal on and he talked about the cleansing and how they would explain that to us," explained the Officer as the Head Officer raised an eyebrow.

"The cleansing?" inquired the watch officer

"Basically about a hundred and fifty years ago they had some splinter faiths which started to form, mostly monotheist." reported the officer, "They went whole Spanish Inquisition on them and killed them all or cleansed them as they call it. Since then they have had only one major faith, they seem to allow some divination in the ways people worship such as what day they hold scared and which of the Gods is most important but no more than that."

"I see." said the watch officer as he placed his hand under his chin. "What do you think?"

"They will see us in the same general light as the ORI did, as believers in a false God and they may want to do the same to us." Reported the officer "At least the Sagittaron will, not sure about the others they had a Caprican member of their faith on to counter the hard line of the Sagittaron."

"I see, we need to look into this more." Confirmed the watch officer as he made a mental note, in another two hours he would be sending the intelligence experts back on Earth who would be coming over everything.

**Meanwhile on the water world of Picon at the colonial fleet command center every high-ranking officer was hard at work trying to gather as much information as they could**. Sadly they had pretty much the same information that the news media had and that was something that the colonels and majors which were supposed to gather the information for Generals where not used to. What they did have access too was first bibs to the best experts in the 12 colonies.

"So Dr. Baltar what do you think?" inquired a colonial Commander to the smartest man in the 12 colonies of Kobol.

"Not totally sure." admitted Dr. Gaius Baltar as the playboy scientists looked over the video of the battle between the Pegasus Battlegroup and the Ark Royal. Baltar was mostly looking at the blue energy beams, which shot out from the Tau'ri ship.

"It has to be Plasma of some kind." Offered up the only person the Doctor had brought with him to Colonial Fleet headquarters. The woman had caused more than a few people heads to turn and even some women as she walked through the corridors in a tight black pants suit with an even tighter low cut red top. "Nothing else could move like that and cut through the haul of a battlestar like that."

"Plasma?" inquired the Commander

"The 4th state of mater, can burn though anything we know about," explained Dr. Baltar before turning toward the blonde bombshell that he had brought with him. "The question is how did these Tau'ri contain it, it naturally wants to expand and by expanding it cools. Possibly a magnetic field of some kind but then the question is how did they contain it."

"Is there any defense to that?" inquired the colonial as the door opened and another blonde woman walked in.

"I can answer that." Said the woman as the two men looked bath and forth as the two females, they both had the same blondish brown hair and eyes, the same face and body type. However this woman was dress in a blue uniform which marked her as a member of the research and development department.

"Hello, Gina." said the woman Baltar had brought with enough venom in her voice to kill within seconds.

"Jenny." said Gina with the same amount of hate in her voice, finally the two of them notice the look the men had. "We are sisters."

"Identical twins?" inquired Baltar as his mind started to think of some of the dirty stuff he would love to do with identical twins.

"Triplets actually." came another voice as another perfectly matching woman only this one with very short hair and carrying a bunch of briefcases walked in. Beside her was a tall dark skinned man with a perfectly shaved head. All three men were looking back and forth between the three women. "Some family reunion we are having now sisters."

"Oh look its Jane." spat Jenny with contempt "How are things in the stargazing field?"

"She must be doing something good to be working with Doctor Herbert, everyone knows he is the best deep space researcher we have." snapped Gina as she came to her sister's defense.

"He is nothing compared to Baltar." laughed Jenny

"Well she didn't have to suck his cock like you do." Spat Gina

"I would say you did the same to get your spot on the fleet advancement program but you like it the other way," laughed Jenny as Gina did a death glare.

"Ladies, can we put the family matters aside for the moment and get to work?" inquired the Colonial Commander "We don't need a fight here."

"I would like to see that," stated Baltar as all three women glared at him. Little did he or the Colonial commander knew that those three women where not even humans but where in truth three different copies of the humanoid Cylon model six, and that this Dr. Herbert was in fact a Cylon himself only he was the fourth model. The fight between the models sixes where just for show and to build a backstory people would believe.

"Now we need to focus on why we are, you are all here." ordered the Colonial Commander "We need to find out as much as possible about our cousins from Earth, so Gina is it how can we stop this plasma weapon."

"You can't stop it but you can protect from it," explained Gina "See how the beams from that destroyed this battlestar while it only badly damaged the Pegasus. See the key is where the beams hit."

"What do you mean?" inquired the colonial commander

"It hit the Pegasus directly below the third 18in main guns on the port side which is key." Reported Gina

"And why would that matter at all?" inquired Jenny as her sister grinned.

"It matters because six months ago there was an accident when a civilian cargo ship crashed into the Pegasus right there, leaving a large dent in the haul but no lasting harm." explained Gina as she glared at her sister. "Instead of taking the ship out of the for a year they just added extra armor there and decided to fix it on the next overall."

"So they hit the most heavily armored part of the Pegasus?" inquired the Colonial Commander

"Yes, and that may be why the Pegasus took the hit better." explained Gina

"Yes, it only had its front half blown off," noted Jane as she rolled her eyes. "That is really taking the hit better."

"Yes considering what happened to the others, but with enough armor it could hold off the attack," explained Gina

"How much?" inquired the Commander

"The armor on a Mercury class battlestar is 6 feet thick with the extra armor the spot on the Pegasus was 8 feet thick," explained Gina "I estimate armor between 12 to 14 feet could take the plasma hit once maybe two times if the blow didn't hit the same place two times."

"So in order to have our Battlestars survive you want to add 6 extra feet of armor," cursed the Commander as he tried to think how much money and time it would take to add all that armor onto every battlestar in the fleet, than there was every other ship in the fleet. Suddenly he remembered his military history class. "The Galactica class ship, how thick is there armor?"

"12 feet thick, the designers back then used 12 whenever possible. It is a lucky number after all." reported Gina as she remembered her own study that there were four twelve gun rows of 18in main guns, two rows on each side for a total of 48 guns.

"How many do we have in the fleet?" inquired the Commander

"Well they originally only made 12 but I think they made over a hundred not sure how many made it through the Cylon War," reported Gina

"I need to inform high command to focus on getting the Galactica ships out of mothball first; I need all of you to keep working." ordered the Commander as he ran out, leaving Baltar alone in the room unknowingly with four Cylons.

**Down in the command center of Valhalla a meeting of the higher officers in different Earth Nation military and civilian intelligence agencies were taking place**. The room itself darkened so that viewing the holographic video display.

"So what do we know for sure?" inquired the Chinese Military Commander as a holographic map of the 12 colonies of Kobol

"These twelve colonies of Kobol are around 2,000 light years away from Valhalla in four star systems so close together it is easy to call them one. It is located to the right flank of our major path to Pegasus," stated the American CIA officer who had gone over the information that the Odyssey had brought back. "While they have dozens of small colonies and mining camps only twelve worlds are of note."

"I am not here for a history lesson, are they a threat?" inquired the Russian Army officer

"Undoubtable." confirmed the British member "From life sign scans down by the Odyssey we estimate that the total population of these worlds are 41.5 billion people."

That caused the Chinese intelligence officer's head to spin around that was just over five times the 7.8 billion people who lived on Earth. Even if the likely population boom, which would come from the additional land, provided by Valhalla and any other world they colony it would take decades to reach that number.

"With 12 worlds I thought it would be higher?" inquired the French officer

"Well two of their words are lightly populated because of either water or ice." Stated the British "And it gets worst we have a total number of military ships that they have access to and it isn't good."

"How many?"

"375 warships." stated the CIA operator, which did not sound bad until he finished "Per major world for a grand total of 4,500 warships of different classifications and types."

"My God." whispered the South African member on the board it did not take much too realized that they were outmatched to the extreme. The colonials had more ships, more people to pull soldiers from and more industrial base to build weapons of wars.

"Now I should stress that most of these ships are actually sitting in mothball of sort in the form of orbit defense lines and most of them are about 40 years old. Even then they have 4,500 ships to call upon if needed duty," reported the CIA operator as he looked down at the list "At the moment they have 150 active Battlestars which is their cross of a carrier and a battleship, 200 Pocket Battlestars which are smaller, faster but less armed. Then there are 350 Destroyers, 300 Cruisers and 250 Frigates in their fleet. The 600 ships which is the rest of their active fleet is made out small 40 men crew patrol ships which act more like a coast guard than anything else. I am not even going into their support vessels."

"Still that is almost two thousand ships in their active fleet," stated the South African

"Now we have the edge in terms of fire power and overall technology. Our ships are better armed better defended and we have technologies they can only dream about such as shields and intergalactic travel," reported the CIA operator "However in our simulations we show our ships destroying large numbers of their own ships before succumbing to their numbers."

"Do we have any other edges over them beside technology?" inquired the Russian, his own nation had used numbers to crush the Germans during WWII at the cost of millions of people so he knew numbers had a huge edge.

"Yes, they do not know where Earth is and using their FTL system it would take decades to reach Earth but we do believe they do know generally where Valhalla is." Explained the CIA member "Also if need be the free Jaffa nation will come to our aid, we are allies and with their forces on our side we will outnumber them."

"True but they are still forming a proper government and I would rather not put our faith totally in their hands." Stated the Chinese Intelligence officer, the last seven years had not been good for the free Jaffa. They had spent so many generations fighting each other in the names of their gods that it was next to impossible to unite them as a single nation.

"What about unification could they be brought into our fold?" inquired the French officer

"Not at this moment we would be assimilated by them." stated the American

"What part of space do they claim as their own?" inquired the Chinese's officer

"Actually not that big of an area." admitted the British officer "They go off the max range of their FTL system which is 10 light years and using their colonies as the center part they claim an area of 30 light years in every detection of their own. In total it is 60 light years from one end to the other."

"Hard to imagine we are considering 60 light years small." laughed the American CIA operator "They are brushing against the extreme edge of our Valhalla defense early warning line but other than that there is nothing of importance in their area of space."

"And if they decided to attack Valhalla, how long for them to get there?" inquired the Russia

"Let's see they have a max range of their FTL of 10 light years and Valhalla is 2,000 light years away so that would be 200 jumps or so." reported the CIA operator. "They also can't jump right constantly they need a cool down time of 33 minutes. Unless the ship has multiple jump drives and only their warships have that, usually only two."

"How long?" inquired the Chinese

"If they jumped constantly they could reach Valhalla in just under 5 days," reported the British "We can reach their worlds in three hours from Valhalla and 7 days from Earth."

"Ok so what sort of major issues do we believe we may have with these people?" inquired the Russian officer

"Religion seems to be the major issue they believe that Earth is one of their colonies." explained the CIA operator "Since they worship the Greek Pantheon it is likely that they were slaves taken from Earth and they have twisted the memory of Earth into their own stories."

"Either way they will see our religious beliefs as an ad front to them, from our reporters they had times in their history when they crushed anyone who believed in a different religion then themselves." added the British officer

"So we have a bunch of possible religious nut cases within five days of Valhalla with enough weapons to overpower our entire military at the moment?" inquired the French Officer

"Basically." confirmed the American "They want to make contact with us and would have come looking for us if we hadn't made contact first."

"Who is going?" inquired the Chinese

"General Shepard, Dr. Woolsey and a small seven ship task force with the Missouri as its center." Explained the CIA operator "The question is what do we recommend?"

"First stay away from Religion and do not reveal the location of the stargate or our worlds," advised the British officer.

**Almost twelve hours later it was early morning on Valhalla and Colonel O'Neill was sound asleep in his bed suddenly there was movement on his wife's side of the bed.** The sudden movement caused him to open his eyes; the house was still dark, which meant that he still had time before he had to get up, and the kids ready for school. The odd thing was that Cassie was on the night shift so she should not have been home.

"What are you doing home early?" said O'Neill as he rolled over and put his arm over what he believed to be his wife's had come home early only to feel fur. His eyes opened to see the deep brown eyes of the dog looking at him confused. "Stanley what have I told you about getting on the bed?"

The three-year-old lab response to the question was to lick his master's face before resting his head on Mrs. O'Neill pillow.

"Ok…but if Cassie sees you then you are in for a world of hurt," noted Jack as he looked at the digital clock on the night stand, he about fifteen minutes before he had to get ready for work so there was no real reason to go back asleep. Slowly he got up and took a shower before pulling out an old fashion straight edge barber razor. Carefully he cut the stubble from his face, yes the knew that most men of the generation he seemed to belong in had either electric or if they lived on Valhalla the new laser razor which used micro lasers to cut the hair. Finally once he had groomed himself for the day he walked down stairs to start making breakfast, however someone else was already down there.

"Look Grandpa is on TV," said the youngest of the three O'Neill and the only boy Daniel O'Neill. The six almost seven-year-old boy was looking at the Good Morning America broadcast of an interview with General O'Neill.

"So he is." confirmed the man's clone, not that his son knew that his father was a clone. That was little too much for a seven year old to process, the oldest knew but it was not something that they talked about. "What do you want for breakfast?"

"I got pop tarts," answered Daniel as he looked at his father with his mother's eyes. Jack would never say it out load but he was happy that his son did not look like him because Charlie the older self's son had looked just like him.

"And your sisters?" inquired Jack to 2nd grader as he took a drink of coffee

"Here." said Daniel's twin sister Susan as she came down the stairs fully ready for school. A few moments later the oldest of the three the nine year old 5th grader Samantha O'Neill, unlike her younger sister she wasn't ready for school.

"So what do you two want for breakfast?" inquired Jack

"Fruit loops is just fine." said Samantha as she moved past her father and took the box of fruit loops from the panty.

"Alright, I have an early meeting so we will be leaving five minutes early and your mom will pick you up from soccer this afternoon," confirmed Jack as he looked over his own computer tablet of today's plans. He had a meeting with General Raj-Singh about something was not sure what.

"I don't understand why everyone is freaking out about the Stargate?" inquired Samantha as she looked at the TV. Jack simply laughed which caused his daughter to look at him.

"It may not be anything to you, considering you grew up either here or Atlantis." reported her father "To them the idea of traveling through a wormhole is amazing to you it is an everyday thing."

**Meanwhile 2,000 light years away on Caprica Commander Adama stood in a small waiting room in his best dress uniform.** He had testified in front of the hearing and it was becoming clear that at best Vice Admiral Cain would be forced into early retirement at worst she would be stripped of rank and be sent to the military prison on the mining colony of Troy. After he had testified, he had been given a slip of paper with a date and time so he found himself standing in front of the famous painting of the swearing in the first President of the 12 Colonies of Kobol. The door leading into the main office opened up as a young woman walked out.

"Commander Adama the President will see you now." Said the woman as Adama walked in to find President Adar standing in front of his desk waiting for the elder Colonial officer.

"Mr. President." said Commander Adama as he saluted his president.

"At ease Commander." said President Adar as he shook his hand. "First I have to thank you on finding our cousins."

"I am just sorry it cost so many lives."

"We are all." Confirmed Adar as he moved around the desk and sat back down, taking the hint Adama did the same. "However all the reports say you handle yourself well, and even advised against some of Admiral Cain's greatest mistakes."

"Sir, if I may be so bold why am I here?" inquired Adama

"I have been told you put in your papers to retire once the Galactica is retired correct?" inquired President Adar

"Yes, I started my career as a pilot on her and I want to end my carrier on her." Confirmed Adama

"Well no one can fault you for that, however what I am going to offer you might make you change your mind." reported President Adar "Commander Adama you have served the people of the 12 colonies of Kobol with honor for so many years it is time that we give you the rank you deserve."

With that, he pushed across a small box toward Adama who opened it to find the metal rank of an Admiral. His eyes widened a bit at the rank, he had never wanted to be an Admiral in fact he had avoided the post since at his age it would mean a desk post.

"Sir, I hate to say this but I am not cut out for a desk job." Reported Adama

"You will not be behind a desk, Cain has shown herself to be too hotheaded and there are more than a few of them in the high ranking colonial military. That means those who have a cooler head must be in positions of power." reported Adar as he stood up and looked out the window at the Caprica City government. He could see all the statues before him with the government buildings and museums running up and down the sides. "If you take this post you will be in the military longer but you will get a new ship."

"Sir, I don't want to leave the Galactica." reported Adama

"You're not going to." Countered Adar "I am sure you have heard about the Hercules class battlestars being built."

Adama blinked, the Hercules class battlestar would be the newest ship in the Colonial Navy and they would be the largest ship ever built. It was nearly double the size of Galactica and had been designed to replace the Galactica class ship. The plan was to build 14 ships; twelve would protect each of the worlds while the other two would be able to respond to Cylon attacks. The first two were due to launch in two years but given how the shipyards normally worked it would be four years.

"Sir I don't want to command those ships, like I said I want to stay on Galactica." Reported Adama

"And until the Hercules class comes online the Galactica and the other ships of her class may be our best defense against our cousins if war comes." Stated Adar as Adama blinked "If our research teams are right the armor on the Galactica can take a hit from those beam weapons of the Tau'ri."

"Are you expecting a war?" inquired Adama

"No but we must be prepared and you know the most about the Galactica class ships." explained Adar "As Admiral it will be your job to bring those ships back online and make sure the new generation knows how to work the older technology."

"Yes, sir." confirmed Adama

**Back on Valhalla, another meeting was taking place this one between General Raj-Sign and Colonel O'Neill. **Before them was a large holographic table showing the layout of what seemed to be two Washington malls set over each other to make a cross.

"So this is the capital city of these 12 colonies of Kobol I have heard about?" inquired O'Neill

"Yes, this is their capital city and from information we gathered from the Odyssey this is where they plan for the ceremonial to welcome us to their worlds." explained General Raj-Sing "It has the same general set of as the Mall in Washington DC, with museums and government buildings forming the outer lines. At each of the end point is a major building, with their Capital and Presidential Mansion on either side of each other and the Colonial Military HQ and a massive temp to their faith on the other ends."

With that, the four ends of the cross-highlighted to point out the buildings that General Raj-Singh was talking about.

"Kind of looks like a plus sign." noted O'Neill as the Indian general nodded his head "Why do I need to know about this?"

"Because your team will be assigned to close in protective detail for General Shepard and Dr. Woolsey." explained General Raj-Singh as O'Neill nodded his head. "We can't afford to deal with these colonials if they get upset at us. We have too much on our plate as you Americans call it. We have the operations in Pegasus against the Wraith, the movement of millions of people to Valhalla and the grand conference on Gaia."

O'Neill nodded his head; he had read the same reports about a grand conference between the multiple free Jaffa factions all of whom claimed in some way to represent all Jaffa, the rulers of the Lucian Alliance, the dozens of free independent worlds and themselves. The goal of this conference was to set boarders and trading rights to avoid wars, since all the sides didn't totally trust each other the only other original member of the Alliance of four races they have meet the Nox would be mediating the event.

"Ok, so it is a standard protective mission with the added benefit of it being a first contact." said O'Neill "We can do this."

"Good, your team will board the Missouri when it passes by here after finishing it's visit to Earth." Ordered General Rag-sing, "Full combat load and be prepared this may turn violent."

"Yes. Sir."

**First, to my readers in the United States, Happy Fourth of July. I know some people may have wanted me to jump right into the meeting but like in real life some things need to be set up before a meeting like that could happen and I wanted to show that. Now I hope you keep reading, thanks Wilkins75.**


	10. Chapter 10

**Important Note**

**I hope you will enjoy this chapter, however I have some news that you may be interested in. I am leaving on a vacation so the next chapter may be a slightly longer wait then normal. I hope you understand.**

**Chapter 10 Preparing for the Meeting**

While the Colonial news media were still going crazy covering every detail about the coming meeting between themselves and their lost cousins. They were covering all the work going into preparing Caprica City for their arrival, they had multiple broadcast hours going over the selection of music, movies and art work which would be presented to their cousins and even covered the process of cleaning up trash across the city. Little did they know that their counter parts on Earth could care less about the colonials and they earned maybe five minutes every three hours on the 24 hour news channels, the nightly news didn't even cover them. Instead the news media and the people of Earth where focus more on the advance technologies and all the different worlds that where now open to them.

Only days after the unveiling of the Stargate Program ten more nations had applied to join the 35 original members to become part of the Tau'ri. Alongside that, government officials were sent out to visit people who had key skills needed on Valhalla. The governments offered free moving, free housing and higher than average wages, all in an attempt to get people to move to Valhalla. In the end they had more calls from people trying to volunteer to Valhalla in one day then they thought they would get in a month.

So when the first group of people were selected to head to Valhalla, the news agencies where live and in person when the group of a three hundred and fifty civilians gathered in a military base outside of Sidney Australia. They all watched as the gate appeared in a flash of light, having beamed in from a still publicly unknown location. Within moments of arrival, the gate was opened and the first group headed out, this group was mostly miners and their families who would now be mining Naquadah and other minerals on Valhalla.

The news media watched as the civilian walked through the gate following behind them was specially modified vehicles all of whom where loaded up with all the personal stuff those families owned. Once they were through the gate, the gate itself disappeared in a flash of light only to reappear a few hundred miles away at a different military base. This time there was no civilians waiting to go through the gate instead it was members of the Royal Australian Army. Once the gate arrived, they had to move fast so that the media did not get wind of the troop movements. When the 250 members of the Australian Army company were through the gate, it was beamed away to its next scheduled pick up of civilians in China, after that it was going to Russia, then Europe and finally North America.

**Elsewhere a flash of light filled the air as the sixty eight year old General Jack O'Neill appeared in a massive oval shaped room. **Thanks to modern technology, he did not look his age but he knew that his retirement was only a couple of years away. Deep down he was counting down the days until he could sit on the dock with a fishing pole in hand, maybe he would get a dog.

"Welcome to the SGC General O'Neill." said a greater as he saluted the commander of all off world forces.

O'Neill looked around the perfectly clean room before looking down at the floor where the image Earth with the Stargate surrounding it was inlaid on the floor in Italian titles. Then he looked around the room where the multiple flags of the different nations of the Tau'ri hung each guarded by a solider in that nation's uniform. Finally, he looked out the window and saw where he was in truth. Out the window was the lifeless surface of the moon and there in the distance was Earth.

"General O'Neill?" inquired the greater

"Sorry, but this isn't the SGC to me," admitted General O'Neill, he knew the reasons why they had moved the SGC and the Stargate to the moon. It made political and military sense, there is only one Stargate and having it located in a single nation was going to cause more problems as time went on. Then there were all the times world-ending events almost happened because of the gate, from aliens taking over the SGC to super plagues. Having the SGC on the moon would mean less chance of that happening. Even so, General O'Neill missed the smell and the feel of the old SGC back on Earth, which was already in the process of being turned into a museum.

"I understand sir," said the greater "Shall I show you to the meeting room."

"Sure, that is why I am here after all," confirmed O'Neill, as he was lead toward one of the elevators, which lead down into the heart of the base.

It took only a few minutes but soon they reached the large conference room like the old SGC overlooked the room where the Stargate would normally be. The gate room had additional protection, which would be extremely impossible to have on Earth. Duel Iris which would prevent anything from coming through the gate, first the traditional metal one and then an energy shield like Atlantis's gate. Then there were all the automatic machine guns built into the walls and ceilings. If that weren't enough at any unscheduled off world activation a system would be put on standby which would open the gate room up to the vacuum of space.

"It is strange not to see the Gate there," noted General Samantha Carter as she sat in her normal spot around the table. Quickly Jack found his seat, he looked around the table to see senior IAO members from the major powers along with General Sheppard.

"Shall we begin?" inquired Doctor Woolsey "We have much to discuss, first the conference with the Nox, the Jaffa Nation and the other human worlds."

"How many are coming now?" inquired General O'Neill

"42." answered Doctor Woolsey

"The answer to life the universe and everything." laughed Shepard, quickly General O'Neill joined in as General Carter blinked.

"The only book I have read which she hasn't is the Hitchhiker's Guild to the Galaxy." explained O'Neill

"Can we please focus on the issues at hand." stated Doctor Woolsey as he tried to get the meeting back on track. "Now most of them shouldn't much of an issue, they just want their own world and the freedom to trade as they wish. The major players are the Free Jaffa Nations and the Lucian Alliance."

"How many factions are they split into now?" inquired John

"It seems our hopes that they would reform after their latest political issue has failed, we now have seven different major Jaffa powers each with a massive fleet taken from the old system lords." reported Woolsey "Luckily they are not in a rush to fight against their brothers and they hold us and the Tok'ra in high regrade."

"The issue is the Lucian Alliance which has fractured even more there are ten different groups and some of those are openly aggressive to us." added a British IOA member "However those groups are smaller compared to the larger factions of the Lucian Alliance which are more interested in making peace with us and becoming a real government."

"Now all the Jaffa Nations and all the Lucian Alliance factions are pretty much like the Israelis and the Palatines until the signing of the treaty of Moscow settled that." added the Chinese IOA member. Everyone around the table knew that the major reason why this conference was happening was the constant battle between the Jaffa and the Alliance.

"The Jaffa nations have a lot more ships then the Lucian Alliance," reported O'Neill, he did not add that both side had more ships then the Tau'ri did now.

"Correct but it was the human slaves which made those ships not the Jaffa, so the Jaffa have no real idea how to build them. The Free Jaffa numbers can only go down while number of Alliance ships can go up." explained a German IOA member "I should add that the Alliance doesn't understand how the ships work either but they know how to make each ships. Slave education was never high on the System Lords to do list either; they know only how to put ships together but not how they work. Most of the workers are as educated to the same level as European Middle Age peasants."

"Now, let's go over the details of each group." started Woolsey

**Meanwhile on Caprica a full meeting of the Colonial Cabinet was taking place inside the President estate in Caprica City. **The whole meeting was planning for the arrival of the Tau'ri which was only days away. The meeting was scheduled to take all day and cover every detail for the arrival however first the military presented their plans.

"So all the forces will be on alert, multiple squadrons of Vipers and Raptors all combat ready either in the air or on the runway waiting to take off," read President Adar as he looked at the planned outline for the military. "An armored tank division and two mobile infantry divisions in the Capital, isn't that a little bit of an over kill."

"Sir, better safe than sorry and one of those infantry divisions is our medical and bio weapon divisions." said the General

"Why is that?" inquired Secretary of Education Roslin

"We are dealing with contact with a new world; they could have some germs we have never been exposed to, it could cause an outbreak of some kind." reported the Secretary of Heath "The medical division is here to help if that happens. It is rare but we have to be careful."

"Makes sense." confirmed Adar as he flipped the page "What is this Operation Insight all about?"

"Sir, we need to know more about the Tau'ri and if these are really our cousins or not." stated the Secretary of Defense "Operation Insight is an intelligence gathering mission."

"You want to place listening equipment in the hotel rooms we are setting aside for them?" inquired Adar "These are our cousins?"

"Sir, in a single fire fight between our ships and a single Tau'ri vessel we lost three ships and another was crippled." countered the Secretary of Defense "We need to prepare for the worst and that means gathering information, I pray to the Gods that it doesn't come to war but we have to prepare for it."

"Is it just having us spy on them may cause a war." inquired the Press Secretary "We need to make a good impression on our cousins after what Admiral Cain did."

"Sir, they are doing recon on us how else would they know how long our day is." Countered the Secretary of Defense "We need to carry out our own that is what operation Insight is all about."

"I see there is a second part to this plan," read President Adar as he looked at the outline of the plan "You want to send a recon mission toward the most likely system that our cousins are in."

"Yes, this isn't going to be a manned mission only drones." reported the Secretary of Defense "We will launch the drones and they will carry out a recon mission to this world all on their own."

"Are you telling me that you have AI drones?" inquired a member of the Quorum as the Secretary shock his head.

"No it is nothing more than a camera trap that a hunter would put out with a small computer with programed jumped coordinators and times that it has to jump." explained the Sectary "From our research into the direction their ships disappeared in we have picked the most likely system for our recon."

"I am not sure about this." said the vice President as she leaned back "To send a those recon drones across the red line could bring the Cylons down on us and that isn't even taking into account the fact that it could upset our cousins."

"And what if this is all a trick by the Cylons those people we saw could nothing more than a computer generated image like in the movies." countered the Secretary "We need to gather the information to know what we are dealing with."

"Is there any chance of the drones being detected?" inquired President Adar

"None at all sir." confirmed the Secretary as Adar rubbed his chin.

"Ok, send three drones and only three not twenty like you want," ordered Adar

"Sir, with only three we will not get all the information we need about this system." Explained the General

"But we will know if they are there or not and once we confirm they are there we will go from there." counted Adar as the Sectary nodded his head.

"Alright let's move on," ordered President Adar before looking at Laura Roslin.

"Now my teams have selected possible historical sites for the welcoming dinner from the Art Center to the front lawn of the Presidential estate." started Roslin "Now we want to show our culture but we can't be shoving it into their face, besides being rude it could be insulting to them making them feel unwelcomed. We need to introduce them slowly."

There was heads nodding around the room as all the cabinet members agreed with the sectary of education.

"What do you recommend?" inquired President Adar

"A simple but formal dinner in the Colonial Zoo." stated Roslin "It has just been renovated, it will show the wildlife of our worlds and it would avoid any issues about which one of our planet's culture gets to be shown first to our cousin."

"I like it." confirmed Adar as he played out the event in his mind, yes the zoon was a little outside of the city but it was the best place. "Arrange it."

**Back in the new SGC located on the moon the meeting of the Tau'ri high command and moved past the coming conference with the major powers in the Galaxy to the war against the Wraith. **Since this was General Shepard's area of command, he was taking the lead.

"Now this is Sera, located on the far outer rim of the Pegasus galaxy population 5.7 million people." reported Shepard as a holographic image of the blue green planet appeared over the table. "It is the most populated planet in the Pegasus Galaxy and so far the Wraith hasn't hit it yet."

"Why is that?" inquired Carter

"It is so far away from the normal feeding ground that it would take a hive ship weeks to get to it." explained Shepard "So would let the population grow to their max while they hibernation then it would normally serve as the final meal before hibernation. A feast before the big sleep"

"And why haven't we heard of this world earlier?" inquired Doctor Woolsey

"They didn't have a Gate," explained Shepard "One of our teams found a crashed Wraith cruiser and downloaded the map of their hunting grounds. Once we found out about them we made contact with them."

"And?" inquired O'Neill

"They are basically in 1970's technology and seamed very happy that there were other people out there beside the Wraith." explained Shepard as he tapped his pen on the wooden table. "Now since we installed the warning systems over planets the Wraith haven't gotten the amount of humans they need to keep them all alive, which is why they have fought each other as much as we have fought them."

Shepard took a breath as the image of Sera zoomed.

"Since they don't know about the fact that we gave the people of Sera a gate the Wraith believe that they have a ready supply of humans trapped." explained Shepard "The Wraith's need for food is so desperate that we have 8 of the last 20 hive ships and their escorts heading straight toward it. We are talking almost a hundred Wraith ships heading there from five different factions of Wraith so they should fight each other when they arrive. They will hit Sara in just over a month."

"That long?" inquired Sam

"It is the very far edge of their galaxy." restated Shepard "But it doesn't matter we can strike a blow here that would cripple the Wraith and if we use our new weapon system we will be able to trap them out there."

"New Weapon system? Are you talking about the Battleships because going up against a hundred Wraith ships is not a winning plan." countered the British IOA member

"A few years ago we came across an Ancient Warship called the Aurora where the crew had been in cryo sleep in which their minds where linked in a computer system. They had found a weakness in Wraith technology which would turn the tide of the war." explained Shepard "Now this information was removed from the computers but McKay thinks he has found it. It has worked on all the lab tests and on a Wraith cruiser in the field."

"The Wraith has no idea that we have this weapon and they have never gone up against our new battleships that in itself will be a major surprise to them," added O'Neill

**Back on the Caprica City, the President of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol and the cabinet had been covering the arrival of their cousins from Earth for hours but now an issue closer to home needed to be taken care of was now dominating the discussion.**

"Are we sure that Admiral Cain will not take a deal?" inquired President Adar

"Sorry sir, from what we have heard even if the judges find her guilty she will appeal to the Quorum." Reported the Sectary of Justice l as the President shook his head.

"Damn that woman doesn't she realize that we have to put this behind us before our cousins arrive." Snapped the President

"Sir, we have gotten some leaked information that her lawyers may drop a subpoena on the Tau'ri when they arrive so that she could get information from their side." Explained the Secretary of Justice as President Adar and others blinked.

"She can't be serious. We don't need her to cause another conflict with our cousins," stated Adar

"It also would raise multiple issues about how much if any our legal system has our cousins." added Secretary of Justice

"What issues, they are a colony of Kobol and they have a seat at the table just like all the children of the Lords of Kobol." stated the Quorum member from Gemenon "They have to follow the laws of the colonies."

"We can't treat them as if they are just a member of our government already." counted the Secretary of Justice "We need to treat them as an independent world, just like we treated Tauron before they joined. While they may be willing to follow some of our laws they could easily tell us to no and there is nothing legally we could do."

The Quorum member seamed to understand the words but did not seem to accept it.

"How could she become an Admiral?" inquired Adar as he looked at Sectary of Defense

"She is a great battlefield commander, the type which we would need in any conflict with the Cylons." Explained the Defense Secretary before taking a breath "It doesn't hurt that she knew the right people and forged close friendships with multiple key people most of all the former President, multiple Generals and Admirals."

"So she knew the right people?" inquired Adar

"That and the fact that she is a great battlefield commander, however she is a hothead." explained the General

"Hothead is a bit of an understatement," stated Adar before looking at the Sectary of Justice "Is there anything we can do to put this behind us? Maybe early retirement or send her to some distance backwater command."

"From what we have heard in the halls of justice she will accept nothing less a full public apology and return to her command at the head of a battlegroup," explained the Secretary of Justice. He took a breath as he decided if he should tell the rest of the story. "The story going around is that when we approached her about taking early retirement she pulled out a knife and started to sharpening it, before telling us to frak off."

"Damn that woman, we can't have that," stated Adar as he felt like screaming "We can't celebrate the reunion of the tribes of man while Cain's hearing is going on. It will only draw attention to how we meet not the future we have."

"She has rights and after the judges find her guilty she can request the Quorum to hold hearings and then after that there is the High court and the 12 judge's there." explained the Secretary of Justice "That process could take months under the best cases, more likely years."

"And we have days." snapped Adar as he tried to figure out how to get a handle on the Vice Admiral. "Why is she doing this why will she not go quietly into the night?"

"Sir, the Judges insulted her sense of honor when they used her records against her." stated the Secretary of Justice as he shook his head. "She should have known it would happen, the Judges get full access to all military records during a hearing."

"**So that is about it?" inquired General Carter as the meeting of the IOA and high ranking military members came toward the end. The meeting in the SGC had been three hours long and they had covered multiple issues and it seemed that everything was covered. **

**"**I think so," added the Chinese IOA member as he and multiple other people stood up to leave.

"Actually we have one last issue." reported Doctor Woolsey as he looked at the very bottom of his computer pad "We have the issue with these 12 colonies of Kobol."

"They are a minor issue almost not worthy of our time." reported the Chinese member "From the reports I have read they do have a lot of ships but they are days away from Valhalla and decades away from Earth. The team should arrive settle the boarder issue and move on."

"That is one idea, however so many people so close to Valhalla is cause for concern." noted the Japanesse woman IOA member "We should try to form a bond with them so that trade can happen."

"Maybe, but trade can wait until we have all the other issues in this galaxy settled." countered the Chinese man.

"The boarder issue shouldn't be an issue, their boarder barely brushes against ours so it should be a quick issue to solve." stated Doctor Woolsey as he looked at his computer "The main issue seems to be religion, these colonials believe Earth is one of their colonies."

This caused a few laughs around the room.

"Well we know that isn't true," stated the old Chinese man with a laugh "Now what issues will come out of Religion beside that?"

"From the information we have gathered they tend to have some very radical when it comes to religion, they even have a history of crushing monotheist religions which tried to from on their world." reported Doctor Woolsey

"I happen to recall a few times in our history when we did similar things. So we shouldn't use their past as an example of what they will do in future." counted the Brazilian IOA member. "From what I read about these worlds, yes they have some radical religious groups but what world doesn't."

"True what do we actually know about their current religion acceptance in their world?" inquired the Japanese member

"Not totally sure we know that they have two worlds Sagittaron and Gemenon which are more religious then the others." reported Woolsey "As for the others it is hard to tell without having people on the ground, we haven't found any other religion of note besides belief in the Greek gods. The intelligence experts believe we should hide our mix of faiths from them."

"How do we do that?" inquired Shepard "I mean how much of our history is tied up in religion, the moment we start talking about ourselves they will figure it out."

"And hiding it may cause an even bigger issue." offered up the Chinese IOA member "If we can't conceal it we might as well embrace it, tell them that we have multiple faiths and we welcome all. We don't have to tell them that their faith in Greek Pantheon isn't one of them at first."

"I believe we should let Doctor Woolsey decide how he wants to handle this, since he is going to be the one talking to these Colonials. Let him and his team get a feel for the people on the ground and make the call then," offered up Japanese IOA member as the others nodded their heads in agreement. "So I believe that is all we have for this meeting."


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11 Face to Face.**

The day had come and now all over the 12 colonies of Kobol people had stopped what they were doing and waited around their TVs for the arrival of the ships from Earth. Fifteen Battlestars had moved to form a defense line between the arrival point of the Earth ships and Caprica. Other defense lines had been set up all over the 12 colonies and the highest state of alert short of war had been declared. Millions of vipers and Raptors where either in the air or on standby for combat launch, one of those vipers who was on alert was Captain Lee Adama. The only living son of Commander Adama now Admiral who had become famous for his ship discovering the two Earth ships which led toward the battle. He was stationed on his family ancestral home of Tauron even though he was born and raised on Caprica he could trace his father's family to this world.

"Can you believe this is happening Lee?" inquired his wing mate as they along with all the other pilots on launch alert gathered in the break room. All eyes were watching the TV when it happened, a blue vortex larger than the one they had seen earlier opened up in the area of space where the Tau'ri ship had disappeared 12 days earlier. Suddenly two ships came shooting out of the vortex, these ships where box like in design with no clear place to launch or recover attack aircraft. The first vessels out of the vortex was even smaller then Odyssey. That made them about the size of the second smallest ship class in the Colonial fleet. At first, Lee was confused and then two more vessels, which seemed to be clones of the two vessels the colonials had already seen, came shooting out of the vortex.

Then it came, a warship just as large as battlestar and if the power of the two smaller ships was anything to go off far more deadly than a battlestar. Luckily, there was a line of battlestars ready to defend the colonies if needed. The last two ships that came out where matching the second pair of ships. They had come out of their FTL in a formation with the larger warship in the center with the four smaller ships flanking it and the two smallest ships moving to the wings of the formation.

"Colonial Forces it is General Shepard commander of the USS Missouri and this task force." said a voice a moment before the image of a man dressed in a blue uniform appeared on the screen. "We mean you no harm and in a few moments we will be launching a transport with four escort fighters to bring the diplomat team down to Caprica, is that acceptable?"

"General Shepard this is Colonial High Command Caprica, you are clear to launch.

**Down in the hanger Colonel O'Neill was making sure his weapon was ready and all his equipment was in place.** For this mission they were going to use full combat load with fully body armor and suits. They were going into be in something that a few years ago looked as if it belonged in a video game. It had bullet proof and bomb resistance armor plates all over his body, an exo suit for additional speed and strength and a visor helmet with heads up display. This model was also capable of fighting in low and no atmosphere.

As he strapped on his armor he couldn't help but remember the first mission he had to wear this suit, when he was stationed on Atlantis.

**Flashback**

Smoke filled the sky as the sound of heavy anti-aircraft cannons began firing at the Wraith Darts which where darting over the skyline of the city. The planet was under attack by a hive ship but a hive ship never traveled alone. A hive ship was the center ship in a fleet with cruisers and destroyers providing protection. In total twenty-six wraith warships where doing battle over their heads with seven Daedalus class warships. The warships job was to buy time to finish the evacuation of the world, the mass exodus had been started days ago but this was a major world with millions of souls.

"Get going!" yelled O'Neill as he and a four men squad along with five squads of the native world soldiers held a bridge open for the civilians running from the wraiths. The gate was on the other side of the bridge and was the one area that they had to keep in their hands.

"Contact!" yelled their sniper as he fired his bolt-action rifle down at single Wraith that had appeared from a side street. The bullet hit the Wraith in the chest but it did not go down, instead it ducked behind a building.

"Fire!" yelled the local commander as he sat in the turret of what appeared to be an old German tiger tank from WW2 to the people of Earth. The massive gun fired, blowing a hole in the side of the brick building where the wraith had come from.

Suddenly screams came from O'Neill's right as he turned a Wraith came storming out of a nearby building its long white hair flowing in the wind, hunger was in its eyes. Jack spun around bringing his assault rifle up but the wraith was too close. It knocked the rifle out of his hands and slammed its palm into Jack's chest. For a moment, he feared this would be the end and that he would not see his daughter grow up. His fear went away as the Wraith looked down and he realized that his life was not fading away. The Wraith had slammed his palm into the metal reinforcing pads in his armor so he had never made contact with the flesh.

Confusion was clear in the Wraith's eyes giving O'Neill the edge; he pulled his fist back and gave the wraith an upper cut with all his strength to the Wraith's jaw. Normally this would send the wraith back a few steps but because he had the power suit O'Neill's punch sent the wraith flying up off the ground and landing a few feet away. The wraith never got back up as O'Neill emptied his 45-caliber pistol into the wraith.

"Jesus Christ!" cursed one of his squadmates as he looked at the Wraith; O'Neill's punch had almost taken off its head.

**End Flashback**

Jack checked his gear one more time before turning to the rest of his team, which was doing the same thing.Most had the Standard Assault Rifle but three where armed somewhat differently, his sniper was armed with a modified M1A, his heavy weapons expert had the latest generation SAW machine gun and his explosion expert had an automatic shotgun.

"Remember people no shooting unless fired upon," ordered O'Neill as he looked at the twelve men and women under his command. "We came to make friends not enemies."

"Yes, sir." confirmed all of them as they put on their helmets, from the outside they looked very similar. Their only real difference was on their uniforms under the Tau'ri flag was their home nation flag.

"Let's go." ordered O'Neill as they headed toward the Owl which would take them to Caprica, already onboard was General Shepard and Dr. Woolsey. The troops got onboard and sat down; the Owl was cramped but not overly so. With that, four eagle fighters took off followed moments later the owl.

The USS Missouri and the other ships in the task force sat outside of the planetary system with a line of colonial warships sat in front of them in a defensive line. Colonial forces did not approach the strange ships, which sat like space the only thing moving were groups of their fighters who were flying protective patrol. Sitting behind the line of warships where the news Raptors that were broadcasting the arrival live across all the colonies. Finally a ship which was different than any others flying left the Missouri along with four fighters which formed a protective line in front of them.

"Colonial forces this is Owl transport 32 out of the USS Missouri with the diplomatic team onboard." said the owl transport pilot as they neared the defense line the colonials had established. "Requesting permission to approach the planet?"

"Owl 32, this is Caprica High command proceed on current flight path and follow all instructions and do not deviate from path or you will be seen as a threat," said some unknown voice over the radio.

"Understood Caprica high command we will not deviate from flight unless fired upon." stated the pilot as he looked behind him and back into the passenger bay. Sitting there was a squad of a dozen soldiers dressed for battle and the two members of the diplomatic team; the rest of the craft was empty. A few seconds before they arrived at the defense line a flight of fourteen vipers surrounded the five Tau'ri vessel. They kept their distance but it was clear that all five ships where in the cross hairs of the fighters. The colonial military was not alone as news Raptors filmed the whole series of events making it the most watched event in Colonial history.

"Caprica High command this is Owl 32, this craft is capable of vertical takeoff and landing where would you like us to land?" inquired the pilot

"Hold on…" said the voice who had to be talking over with the highest members of their military. "Owl 32 you are cleared to land in front of the Quorum building a Raptor will guide you in."

"Understood." said the pilot and within moments, a colonial Raptor appeared in front of the crafts leading them in.

**Down on Caprica most of the members of the government were gathered on a large stage, which had been set up in front of the Quorum building.** For safety reasons the VP and some other senior military and civilian members of the government where on different planets. The building itself was a massive building with a long colonnade of thirteen columns each shooting 80 feet high standing in front of each column stood a statue the Lord of Kobol which was supposed to be the protector of each of the major colonies of Kobol. Hanging about the statues was the flags of each colony the only spot was above Gaia who in the holy scrolls was the protector of Earth. Now before these statues of the Lords the final tribe will return to embrace their cousins. Besides the members of the government, a massive amount of military members dressed for combat could be seen along with the crowds of people which turned out.

The drone of aircraft engines caused people to look up as five black aircraft came out of the sky surrounded by vipers and led by a raptor. The fighters broke formation as they began to circle the area, the black ones providing over watch for the other black craft while the vipers watched them. The Raptor and the other larger craft headed toward the large grass field in front of the stage. Twin front engines fired as the larger craft came in to hover over the grass kicking up some of the blades and making a few people cover their faces. The craft landed with a slight thump as the engines started winning down and all eyes were on the strange craft. It was unlike anything the colonials had ever seen and most interesting was the fact that not one but two flags where paint on the side of the craft. A few cameras zoomed in on the pilots but because of the tilted windows, they could not see much more then outlines of people, flipping controls as any pilot would after landing.

**Inside the Owl transport, the special guard detail was doing a final check of their weapons. **

"Alright do not fire unless fired upon." said O'Neill again as he put on his helmet and clicked the side as the clear glass became black and the heads up display showed him everything he would normally see plus it gave him a video feed coming from the outer cameras of the owl. Behind him the others were doing the same, last thing he did was load his weapon and making sure the safety was one.

"Time to go." said O'Neill as he hit the button on the side and the ramp started to go down. As the ramp went, down there was thousands of camera flashes as O'Neill thank God that the visor was black.

The first image that people saw of the people of Earth caused a few people to be taken aback; there were figures dressed in strange black armor with a visor covering its face. In its hands was a strange looking rifle and for a moment people believed they were some kind of Cylons until they saw the fingerless gloves and the pink flesh of the hand. The cameras kept rolling as the figures moved off the transport in a military formation with their hands on their weapons but they did not rise them up, a few went down on one knee scanning the area. This caused a few scared looks from the civilians but the police and military knew what to do.

The Colonial Marines and Caprica Police had expected this to happen and so while their own special forces where ready to respond there was no gunfire of any kind exchange. What the military had not expected or planned on was a hyperactive active five year old, who did not know what was going on in front of him so when he dropped his ball it rolled pass the line of police toward the Tau'ri. The police where too stunned to do anything as the ball came to a stop at the foot of the first figure off the transport.

O'Neill looked down at the blue ball, which had hit against his combat boots before looking up at the little kid who stood maybe arms reach away from him. Apart from the sports jersey he wore on his chest for a team and sport he had never heard of he looked just like any kid from Earth. The kid looked up at the strange armored figure with confusion.

All the news cameras where on Jack as he bent down and picked up the ball and offered it back to the kid. The kid did not take it; he was still looking into the dark visor of the combat helmet too scared to move. Jack placed the ball down on the grass and took off his helmet allowing the boy to see his face. That is when the camera flashes really took off as they saw an actual human face. What they saw was a man in either his early 30's or late 20's with a close military haircut; he did have any strange tattoos or skin color. He would not have looked out of in place at any military base on the colonies.

"Nice ball." said Jack with a warm as the boy took the ball and ran back toward his mother. Since he already had, his helmet off he placed it on his belt clip. Seconds after that he pulled out his trademark baseball cap and placed it on his head, all eyes were on him as he scanned the crowd.

"All clear General!" yelled O'Neill back toward the Owl transport with that two figures stepped off the shuttle. These where dressed in different clothing, one of them was dressed in a suit which wouldn't have been out of place in the colonies only difference seemed to be the number of buttons and which ones where buttoned. The last one was dressed in a blue uniform with a cap on his head and judging by the amount of metals on his chest and shoulders had to be a high-ranking member of the military.

"Sir, shall we?" inquired O'Neill as he stood before General Shepard.

"Yes, let's go say hello," said Shepard as he and Dr. Woolsey began moving up toward the stage where judging from the number of microphones there was were they needed to go. As they moved toward the gathering of colonial leaders O'Neill and three other members of his team followed right behind, their rifles resting in their arms, the other eight had formed a line around the Owl. Most had stood up from their defensive position; all of them had their weapons ready but pointed down so that it could not be seen as a threat.

As they neared the stage the number of camera flashes increased, the sea of people separated as they walked past the government leaders who had gathered to see this event. One man a balding man dressed in a navy blue suit with white button down undershirt and a matching tie stood his ground. Standing to either side of him was a man in a deep forest green uniform and a woman who had flowing robes and held a book in her hands.

"Hello I am President Richard Adar of the 12 colonies of Kobol." greeted the balding man.

"President my name is Doctor Richard Woolsey chief representative of the United States of America on the International Oversite Advisory Commission and I have been sent by the governments of Tau'ri to discuss with the events that happened between our two people."

"Sorry but I have inquire the Tau'ri are you really the people of Earth." inquired Richard Adar

"Mostly, we have colonies of our own but we are all Tau'ri." stated Richard Woolsey, it was somewhat of a lie since the humans form the Pegasus galaxy where not descended from Earth but they were all descended in form from the Ancients. "Allow me to introduce General John Shepard of the United States Air Force and one of our top military commander."

"General John Shepard allow me to introduce General Mike Roose of the Colonial Army and Supreme Military Commander of the Armed forces of the 12 colonies of Kobol." introduced President Adar as the two military officers looked at each other before shaking hands.

"Excuses me Dr. Woolsey I am Priestess Gogola of the Holy Order of Zeus, didn't you bring a member of the your faith order so that the union of all 13th tribes of man could happen before the light of all the Lords of Kobol." Inquired Priestess Gogola as Dr. Woolsey gave the woman a warm smile.

"Madam, we mean no disrespect but the people of the Tau'ri keep religion separated from our government business," explained Dr. Woolsey the more devote believers felt a little bit upset by the news. Dr. Woolsey saw this on this face and decided that the truth was needed in order to smooth the water. "You have to understand our history is full of bloody internal conflicts most of whom revolve around the proper way to worship, when the nations of Earth came together we made sure that religion and state was separated to avoid those issues."

"I see. We didn't have those issues here but there was multiple times in our history when war almost happened." stated Priestess Gogola.

"Well maybe you can teach us how you did it." Offered Dr. Woolsey as Priestess Gogola smiled at the complaint.

"Shall we take this inside," offered President Adar hoping that the Sagertiearn delegates and the religious faction did not start a yelling insults at the delegates from Earth.

"Yes, that would be for the best," confirmed Woolsey as they headed up the large stairs which lead toward the 13 columns with their statues of the Lords of Kobol in front of them. The cameras kept rolling as they headed up and pass the statues, the most camera flashes happened as they passed between the statues of Zues and Athena and entered the Capital Building of the 12 colonies of Kobol.

While they walked up the stairs it seemed as if there was at least five people with a camera per step they took. Finally they moved past the statues of the Greek gods and goddess and walked though the bronze doors which lead into the a long hallway. Lining the walls where oil paintings, tapestries and even more statues showing what seemed to be religious events in nature, finally they entered what looked sort of like the rotunda back in the US capital building. It was a round room; however, it lacked the large dome top. Lining the walls where once against statues of the 13 major lords of Kobol which protected the worlds of man. However these statues where not nearly as large as the ones outside and the major items seemed to be the large paints which showed key historical events in the colonies. The strange thing was that there was one empty spot on the wall.

"There is a private room here." reported President Adar as they moved past the statue of Athena and opened the first door on the left to show a long wooden table surrounded by chairs.

"Colonel O'Neill stay out here with one other and stand guard." ordered Shepard "Maybe mingle a bit."

"Yes, sir." confirmed O'Neill, Senior Sergeant Avilov your with me."

"Yes, sir." said Senior Sergeant Avilov as the Russian spetsnaz officer stopped allowing the other two members of the team who were not guarding the Owl to head inside. Once the door closed, O'Neill turned to see a massive wall of media and Quorum members all looking at the two of them.

"Are we allowed smoking here?" inquired Senior Sergeant Avilov as O'Neill blinked at him before he noticed that more than a few people in the massive crowed where smoking.

"Yes." confirmed a nearby colonial officer who seemed stunned by the question. The Russian wasted no time as he pulled out a pack of smokes and a lighter. "I already like this place better then America, they let people smoke inside."

"Damn Russians I have yet to meet a single one of you which was not a smoker." cursed O'Neill as the media caught the whole exchange.

"Excuses me Russians? America? What are those?" inquired one of the members of the media

"See the flags on our arms." stated the smoking Russian Avilov as he pointed toward the Red, White and Blue strips on his arm. "It's our home nations; I was born just outside of St. Petersburg in Russia while the Colonel here is American a whole different country."

"So like our Colonials of Kobol is made up of different worlds like Caprica and Tauron Earth has different worlds like Russia and America?" inquired a newswoman as this went out live.

Both O'Neill and the Russian laugh a bit before shaking their heads.

"Close but no cigar, Russia and The United States of America along with over a hundred other nations share Earth." Reported O'Neill as the colonials blinked, that was unheard of in their history. Even before the planets, where united in single world governments the most divided planet Tauron only had two dozen nations. "And until recently we spent more time fighting each other than anything else."

"Really?"

"Yes, I mean we have fought major wars against each other. Looking back on it was rather stupid," stated O'Neill.

"Yes. When I first joined the military was trained to kill you Colonel O'Neill just like you was trained to kill us in your military," confirmed the Russian in Russian as he took a deep drag on the smoke.

"Different times," confirmed Colonel O'Neill

"Thank God," said Senior Sergeant Avilov in his native Russian so that the media did not hear what he said.

"So can anyone show us around, I would love to take some photos of your paintings for my sister, she is Art History student at Moscow State University back on Earth," asked Senior Sergeant Avilov as he pulled a small camera from his pack.

They did not have to say another word as people started to line up to explain each painting in detail.

Inside the conference room General Shepard and Doctor Woolsey sat down at the table across from President Adar, General Roose, Priestess Gogola and the 12 most senior members of each of the 12 colonies. Standing behind Shepard where the two guards just as two armed colonial marines stood behind their president.

"Allow me to begin." started Doctor Woolsey "We understand that the brief firefight between your forces under an Admiral Cain and our ship the HMS Ark Royal was likely a mistake."

"Yes, we didn't want that to happen we feared that your forces where really a Cylon trick." admitted the President "See the Cylons are robots that we created over 40 years ago as cheap labor and then they turned on us. We made a peace with them but since they are soulless machines who can't believe in the Lords of Kobol we fear one day they will return."

"I see, and you believed we were them?" inquired Shepard

"Yes, General Shepard." admitted General Roose

"Well we have had our fair share of bad first contacts so who are we to judge when people make mistakes." reported Shepard "Besides apart from an Eagle Fighter and a station which can easily rebuilt it cost us nothing while you lost a lot of lives."

"Yes, people who will never see their cousins return to the fold," said the Gemenon member of theQuorum as the other Quorum members smiled. "We should start the process of unification as soon as possible."

"Well we are a long way off from that happening," stated General Shepard as some the colonials member blinked at the words but before they could speak Doctor Woolsey spoke up.

"You have to understand we have no real idea who you are and you have no idea who we are." Said Doctor Woolsey all the Tau'ri in the room knew that there was no way that they were going to unite with the Colonials at least under the colonial flag, if they wanted to join the Tau'ri under the leadership of Earth, they would consider it.

"Yes, that is totally understandable we have spent 4,000 years apart we can't expect unification from happening now however with the grace of the Lords of Kobol we can take the first steps toward that wonderful day," said President Adar more to the member of his own Quorum then the Tau'ri.

"Now before we move forward let's talk about boarders so that we don't have another issue like the one we had earlier." offered Doctor Woolsey, that was the main thing the IOA wanted out of these talks. He nodded toward one of his guards a Japanese woman walked forward and pulled out a long thin roll from the pack on her back. The colonial guards where on edge as the woman placed the roll down on the table. Then with one quick move, she unrolled it to show a thin gunmetal gray pad however, what was strange was that aside from a grid. Then it happened the grid began to glow and then before the colonials' eyes a holographic image of the twelve tribes of Kobol appeared before them.

"Wow." said President Adar as he looked at the technology before them.

"Now I believe your worlds are in these systems here correct?" inquired Doctor Woolsey "And since our battle happened on your boarder we am guessing your boarder is this."

With that a holographic image of the map of Colonial space appeared, the Tau'ri already knew the boarders of the Colonials but they put errors in the map so not to tip their hand about what they knew.

"Close maybe if we know the territory under your control we can make a mutual boarder." Express Adar, everyone around the table knew the colonials wanted that to know just how far their cousins had advanced. That was something that Dr. Woolsey and General Shepard were not going to give them.

"We aren't willing to share the location of Earth or our nearest colony to your boarders yet however we will respect your boarders and as long as you don't cross them we will have no issue," explained Shepard as some of the Quorum members eyes narrowed noticeably. They had not expected their cousins to be blocking them at every turn, they had expected some push back but not to share the location of their sister colony of Earth or at least the nearest world was something they had not expected.

"We will share basic information about Earth and our culture with you and your people." offered Doctor Woolsey "We can arrange a cultural exchange while more detailed negation takes place, like you said we need to get to know each other."

"That would be great, we can both share our cultures with each other while more high level talks take place," confirmed Adar "We have arranged a welcoming dinner at the Zoo of the Colonies of Kobol this evening."

"That sounds wonderful and as it so happens we have brought five animals from Earth so that we can show a living symbol of Earth so that we can give it to you as a good will gift." said Woolsey, he was lying about not knowing the plans of the colonials and the sad thing was both sides knew this. Even though they knew, the colonials would have to pretend that they did not know, it was just part of the diplomatic game. "That is if you want them?"

"Of course, we have a special area revered in the zoo where the animal symbols of the colonies are displayed we will put them there for all the colonies to see." said Adar with a warm smile.

**Outside the time seamed to drag on as the colonials discussed all the paintings. Overall** the paintings where what they had expected to see, sign of their religion, great historical battles and signings of major documents. Turned out that each world has to select a painting that would hang in the halls for a span of 13 years before another would be selected. Finally they reached Tauron's painting, the painting showed a large man in the nude with a shield and spear fighting a thick brute of a looking man holding a large hammer. The man with the shield and spear was clearly the hero in the panting and looked like a perfect human while hammer wielding one looked more like an Ape then men.

"The battle between Lord Areas and Thor on the field of Kobol." reported the art historian who was discussing the different artwork. "During the Great Exodus from Kobol, you may not have that in your holy scrolls."

"Yes, we know Thor however we don't have any stories about Areas fighting Thor." inquired Jack, knowing that it was thanks to Thor that he was even alive.

"We have so much to share with you about our common history," said the Historian and Jack fought the need to roll his eyes at that.

**Suddenly the door from the meeting room opened up causing all the cameras to spin around and look at the door as the Colonial leaders and the Tau'ri leaders stepped out.** Instantly a swarm of media rushed forward as the President prepared to speak.

"We have had a great first round of talks but with so much to discuss it takes times to get everything right." Explained President Adar "We are taking a break for the day so that we can all get our minds around the events of the day and we will start again first thing in the morning."

"Are the Tau'ri heading back to their ships?" inquired a newswoman

"No President Adar has offered us the top floor of this Colonial Station for our needs while we are here." explained Doctor Woolsey with a warm smile "Besides we have so much more to talk about."


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12 Preparing the Field**

The Colonial Station was like a cross of Union station in Washington DC with a grand hotel. It was separated into three sections; the bottom floor was the subway. The ground level was a massive shopping mall in the center and movie/concert halls on the wings. It was cross roads point between multiple places around the capital so foot travel was always heavy. Finally, the top two floors was a hotel for VIP visitors to the Capital. The flat roof of the building was used as a Raptor landing point, however no Raptors where currently sitting on the multiple pads. Instead six more Owl transports had joined the first one on Caprica bring the total Tau'ri force down here to just under a hundred people.

"Did you do the sweep?" inquired General Shepard as he cut a piece of ham off the larger piece on his plate before taking a bite. The Colonials where holding a welcoming feast for them in a couple hours but if the intelligence report was correct about what they were having it didn't sound good to most of the Tau'ri delegation. Since this was the welcoming dinner, the colonials would be showing their best and strangest food.

"Yes, found all the listening devises including the ones they didn't want us to find," reported O'Neill as he took a bite from his own piece of baked ham before going after the macaroni and cheese. "We have also sealed the exits with our own systems so unless they blow a hole in the door no one is getting up here without us knowing."

"Good." confirmed Shepard "And our little PR stunt with the animals?"

"Setting up now," confirmed O'Neill as he checked his watch, he had changed it to Caprica time so it read 17 hundred hours, or 4pm since the colonials here had a 26 hour day and midday was 13 instead of 12. "The dinner is at six correct?"

"That is when it starts but we will not eat to likely seven or eight," confirmed Shepard as he checked his own watch "I better get going Teyla should be landing soon along with the next group people."

"And I have to make an information request." stated Jack both of them knew that another operation was taking place on nearby Tauron. Since Caprica and its sister world Gemenon where on total lock down but nearby Tauron was not.

It was middle of the night in a warehouse looking one story building outside of the Capital of Tauron City. The colonials had a strange habit in the view of the people from Earth of naming their capital city after the planets. The building outside the bright lights of Tauron City was only a single story high and had a chain link fence around it. Guards patrolled the site but mostly to stop drunken idiots coming back from the nearby bars from doing anything too stupid. They were not trained to handle an actual planned attack on the building, yet alone one that they could not see.

There was no sign of anything out of the ordinary as suddenly a light guest of wind caused some nesting birds on the roof to take flight. The roof had no alarms or even cameras since the Colonials had never had to deal with a ship like a puddle jumper. Seconds after the Jumper came to a stop three armed figures dressed head to toe in black. They did not run toward the roof entrees instead they headed toward a small box located in the corner. One of the figurers pulled a small laptop computer out and plugged a cable into the small box.

"How much time do you need?" inquired Ronan as he stood over Dr. McKay.

"Give me a couple of moments," reported McKay as he began to hack into the buildings computer network. They all knew that right under their feet was a Colonial server farm. The routers down there where not military and was only give total access to the colonial internet. The military computer network would come later; first, they had get information on who were the major players in the colonies. The virus defense that the colonials had put in place was laughable to McKay who had spent years dealing with Ancient, Asgard, Wraith and countless other computer systems. Within minutes, he had gained access to the network, which spread out across Tauron. The colonials had adopted a sort of isolated network to defend against the Cylons. Each world had its own internet network, the only way to communicate between networks on different worlds was with satellites and those only updated every couple of days after a scan for any virus. The hope was that if the Cylons where to get into the system the colonials could cut off the infected network from others. Some of the world has even separated it down even more so that different parts of the planet had different internet. It would not stop this Tau'ri, Asgard, Ancient hybrid of the program from reaching it all but it would slow it down.

"Uploading." reported McKay as he began uploading a computer program of his own design, using some Asgard code his program called Nightfall would begin to do a total sweep of the network and create multiple lists of key figures in the colonies. It would be these people that the intelligence agencies would go after to get more detailed information. The Nightfall program would create lists of 25 key people in the areas of Politics, Business, Science, Culture, Religious and Historical, the top ten would then get more research done on them so that the Tau'ri could get a list of major players in the colonies. Once that part of the intelligence mission was done it would move on and begin making what the military called strike plans, where it would find the military bases and key locations of war importance and list them based on importance. This was done in the hopes that it would not have to be used.

"How much longer?" inquired Ronan

"Done, all we need to do is set up the broadcaster," said McKay as he pulled out a small disk about 8 in across and only two inches deep, this McKay attached to the wireless network of the building. The broadcaster would send updates as it finished each of its massive task. The solar cell would provide all the power it would need for its task but it needed to stay out of sight. "Put it on the roof over there."

With that, McKay handed the disk off to Ronan who took it and ran it over to where the roof enters door was and with a single hand he pulled himself up onto the small rise placing the disk down. With that done, all of them ran back to the Jumper, which took off without anyone in Tauron or the rest of the Colonies being the wiser.

**Across the mall from the Colonial Station sat the Cylon War museum where the history of the most deadly conflict in the history of the 12 colonies of Kobol was preserved for all time. **While the museum was open to the public the roof was being used for another mater. Sitting in hidden outposts where members of Colonial Intelligence Services or CIS. Normally they had only two missions, gather information about possible Cylon threats and terrorist actions. Now all their efforts where put toward studying the arrival of their cousins from Earth. They had watched the strange craft called Owls come and go. While they were larger then Raptors and capable of carrying more they seemed just as capable in every other way. Everyone who had come off those ships along with equipment had been photographed and would be studied. So far, they had seen what they expected to see. People and equipment moving off the transports and into the building, some of the people where armed but that was understandable. There were even armed guards walking around the roof of the building with marksmen in different location, none of that was a surprise to the Colonials watching their cousins.

"They have taken down all but five of our devises on their floor," stated a young officer to the commander. They had known that they would lose their listening devises the moment they had started going down, what they had not expected was how fast they had been taken down. They had hoped for a couple of days but it had only taken minutes.

"Which ones are still up?" inquired the Commander

"The radiation alarms." stated the younger officer "That will tell us nothing."

"It tells us that they aren't trying to sneak in a nuke," countered the Commander as another Owl came in for a landing filling all the landing zones. Once again, the intelligence crew began taking photos, suddenly a beautiful woman came out of the back ramp. Unlike the others, they had seen she was not in a military uniform or a suit of some kind. Instead, she had on jeans and a tight t-shirt.

"Who is that?" inquired the younger as he zoomed in on the woman; he snapped a photo as General Shepard walked into the frame. The next photo showed the two of them kissing.

"Must be his wife," reported the Older as something unexpected happened, two kids one maybe 13 or 14 the other at most seven came out of the Owl. The younger one, the girl ran up to the general who picked her up causing her to laugh. She looked like older woman who had come out of the Owl only with the General's darker hair. The older boy seamed to ignore the General; instead, he was looking down at a hand held computer just like any teen in the colonies.

"His family?" inquired the younger

"A safe bet and this is a great thing," noted the Commander with a smile "It means they have trust in us or else why bring their children down here. Their only way off world are their transports and there is no way they could escape our anti-aircraft systems around the capital."

**Little did they know that not only did the Tau'ri have a way off world without the Colonials knowing but some already had left Caprica**. Walking down on of the corridors toward the Asgard Core was Jack O'Neill. The door opened atomically giving him access to the core room.

"Greetings O'Neill." said a Holographic representation of the dead Asgard Thor. The short thinned armed and legged hologram was a perfect likeness of Thor. The hologram even faked breathing for some reason. "How can I help you this day?"

"Thor, question did the Asgard ever have a battle against a Goa'uld named Ares?" inquired O'Neill to the hologram, the hologram blinked which was a sign that it was going through the databases to find the data.

"I am sorry O'Neill could you be clearer, there has been multiple battles between the Asgard and the Goa'uld during the multiple wars we had with them. There has been 196 battles between the Asgard and Goa'uld Ares or the system lords who he worked for." stated the Thor hologram as O'Neill placed his head in his palm.

"How about a battle on a planet called Kobol?"

"There is no planet or location in the database called Kobol." reported Thor "So I cannot use that to narrow the field. Do you have anything that could help me narrow the search?"

"It is said you fought Ares on Kobol around two thousand years ago." Reported O'Neill as Thor blinked.

"I am sorry once again O'Neill but two thousand years ago the Asgard launched multiple military operations in multiple parts of this Galaxy against the Goa'uld including operations against Ares or the System Lord he worked for." explained Thor "I cannot use this to narrow the search."

"Sir, I know it's a pain in the ass," explained the officer in charge of the computer core "The Asgard had a strange way of dating battles."

"How so?" inquired O'Neill

"How should I say this?" said the officer as he thought about it "While we would call the entire battle of Gettysburg a single battle the Asgard would break it down into not only day but by hours, location and the people fighting. Each one would be its own battle and would get its own log entrée."

"That sounds confusing as hell," stated O'Neill

"It's the Asgard." countered the officer with a shrug.

"If you had a better date of the battle or the location of the planet it may be useful in locating the information you want." stated Thor "Ares was a major general to the system lord Zues which my people destroyed after a long protracted war. As his right hand general Ares took part in almost every battle in the war."

"Sir maybe if you tell me what you want I'll send an inquest to the team of historians looking through the database back on Earth. They may have better luck," offered the officer as O'Neill lowered his head in defeat before telling the officer what he was looking for. "Send the information to General O'Neill ask him to inquire about it to Teal'c and the other Jaffa maybe they know something."

"Sir couldn't you ask that yourself, he is your father isn't he?" inquired the Officer only to get a death glare from O'Neill. "Sorry sir, I'll send the request."

**Almost an hour drive outside of Caprica City state the Colonial Zoo, the zoo was two times the size of any zoo on Earth at almost 300 acres that included a massive Aquarium and was home to just under 10,000 animals. **The entire zoo had been closed for days and a massive cleaning operation had begun to make the place ready to be the site of the welcoming feast. Military Police had the whole park sealed off and the best chefs in the colonies had come to prepare the traditional meals for the Tau'ri and those colonials lucky enough to get one of the 1,500 tickets to the main event at the center of the zoo. The entire zoo staff was on edge as they watched a black aircraft come in for a landing at the front gate.

"Remember everyone be on your best behave." Said the Zoo's Chief Zoologist as the back ramp of the Tau'ri transport lowered and a tall woman dressed in a pair of khaki shorts and a green shirt stepped off. She had her long black hair pulled back and her skin was almost as black as the craft. She walked over toward the gathering before offering her hand to the Chief Zoologist.

"Hello, I am Rachel Bush of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium," said Rachel with a warm smile.

"Mike Gant, Chef Zoologist of the Colonial Zoo. Thank you for coming." said Mike as took the Rachel's hand.

"Sorry about dropping this on you so late." said Rachel "I know political leaders can be a pain but they want these animals to be part of the welcoming ceremony tonight."

"Not a problem in fact we have planned for this in designing our zoo." explained Mike as Rachel blinked. "Let me show you."

With that, they headed off into the massive zoo past the welcoming statues of multiple different animals, which framed the entrees, and past a long line of gift shops, which was around the exit. It took them a while but soon they found themselves in a large circle opening with multiple paths leading out of it. All around them people where setting up tables and chefs where setting up their open-air kitchens so that all could see them at their work.

"This is the main focal point of the zoo, from here guest can go any part of the zoo." Explained Mike "Also this is where most of the living symbols of the colonies are."

"Most?" inquired Rachel

"Well the world fish of every colony is at the Aquarium." Explained Mike "I do pray you didn't bring your world fish."

"We don't have one," admitted Rachel as the Colonials blinked. Rachel caught the stunned looks "What?"

"Well it is traditional in the colonies to have a world land animal, Fish and bird. Something to do with honoring different Lords of Kobol, no one really knows why or cares that much." Explained Mike "We have habitats here for all the land animals and the birds are in Aphrodite's garden over there."

Rachel looked and there in the center of the massive clearing was a large house with the golden statue of a beautiful woman on the outside. One of her arm was outstretched and multiple golden birds sat on her hand as if they were singing to her.

"Well maybe I should have been clearer, we don't have a world fish but we do have a world sea animal." explained Rachel "It's a sea mammal and we didn't bring it."

"Oh, that is fine maybe in time you can bring it and we can put it on display," offered Mike as Rachel tried not to laugh at the idea of someone trying to hold a Blue Whale in captivity.

"That is an issue for another day, may I see where you plan to put the animals?" inquired Rachel as she was lead toward an empty habitat, it did not look much different from one she saw on Earth. It had multiple trees and a large ditch near the viewing platform so that animals could not get to the people.

"We heard you were bringing five animal species so we prepared five habits but this is the nearest one." Explained Mike "The other nearby habitats have the animal symbols of the other colonies, this was the spare one we used to move animals to when we had to work on their pens. However it was designed so that Earth symbol could join with its cousin."

"Well you miss understood, we brought five animals four of whom are the same species and the other is our world bird." explained Rachel as Mike smiled. In truth, it had taken a lot to convince the Tau'ri government to bring the animals in the first place and bringing multiple different species would have increased the trouble with the different kind of food. Space was still limited on the warships, after this most of the ships would be heading straight to Atlantis. "This habitat seems to be prefect for them."

"Wonderful we can put the bird in with the other birds of the colonies." said Mike as he lead Rachel off to the building in the center. When they entered Rachel saw a problem almost at once, the building was a massive indoor garden. The roof was nothing but glass and multiple different small birds flew around singing to each other. Flowers of all different kind where in full bloom filling the air with their scents. In a normal situation, it would have been a wonderful addition to any zoo but it would be a massive problem now. She looked over to a nearby wall and saw the same type of signs she would see in any zoo. It showed a photo of the animal and a short description, she noticed at once all the birds where small song birds, the largest the size of a blue jay.

"We have a set up a separate area so that visitors can see your world bird when they come and don't have to go hunt it down." Explained Mike with a smile "In time your bird will sing along side its cousin."

"All your world birds are songbirds?" inquired Rachel, as she looked at all the small birds flying around and singing their sweat music.

"Yes, it is said that Aphrodite had a garden full of singing birds on Kobol and that the singing birds could cause people to fall in love forever." Explained Mike "We actually had to kick out a wedding party which was supposed to use this place tonight for you all."

If the bird that the new Tau'ri government had decided to be the symbol of all the nations where to be free here it would not be singing with these birds, it would be hunting these birds and making meals out of them.

When the nations of the Tau'ri where debating what animals to take as their symbols it was decided to help avoid the appearance that one of the big eight powers was really in charge their national animals were removed from the list of candidates. This meant that the American Bald Eagle, the English Lion, the Indian Tiger, the Russian Brown Bear, the Brazilian Jaguar, Germany Black Eagle, the French Gallic Rooster and the Chinese Panda had all been taken off the list. The new animal symbols of the Tau'ri would be different so that all could be equals under them.

"Can I see the other symbols of your colonies?" inquired Rachel as she was led off to see the other living symbols of the 12 colonies. She was led around the ring of habitats and what she saw was animals that where both strangely similar to animals either from Earth or its history but all were somewhat different.

There was the Aerilon Trihorn, which looked like almost like an African Black Rhino only it had a large frill which had two extra horn like a Triceratops. Beside that was an Aquaria Ice Bear which looked almost like an copy of a polar bear only with more bluish fur, then there was Scorpia Giant tree bear, it looked like a giant ground sloth in Earth history. Then there was the Caprican Tiger which was smaller than its earth cousin and more of a yellow tone. The Gemenon Swamp dragon was a cross between giant Komodo dragon and a saltwater crocodile. The Leonis Lion looked like a match of the African Lion only the males had no mane and the Picon Panther and the Canceron Jaguar was a perfect match to Earth's version. The Libran Screamer Bird looked like an animal out of Earth's history the extinct Tear Birds. The Virgon Elk also looked like its earth cousin only with much larger antlers. The last two animals flanked the habitat of the animals from Earth, which were currently being unloaded from the owl. They were also considered the most holy and religious symbolic animals the Tauron Bull and the Sagittarian Mountain Ram.

The Tauron bull was larger than even the largest cattle ever to walk Earth the Aurochs. The Aurochs had just been brought back thanks to project Noah and the Asgard cloning technology just like other long dead animals like the Tasmanian Tiger and the Woolly Mammoth which had only a few hundred members still alive in Siberia when the Asgard came to Earth thousands of Earth ago. The Sagittarian mountain Ram was a much larger version of Bighorn sheep, which could be seen in multiple places on Earth.

"Well what do you think?" inquired Mike

"Lovely animals," stated Rachel as the animal crates holding the animals from Earth arrived.

"Well let's get these animals ready for the show," said Mike as he looked at the five crates, four of them where about the same size while the fifth was smaller.

**A couple hours later inside the Presidential estate, Adar along with most of the Cabinet was having a short meeting before they headed toward the welcoming dinner at the Colonial Zoo.** Because of all the traffic on the roads around Caprica City, they had decided to go by Raptor, the Tau'ri where going in their owl transports. This was the first of many meetings which was going to take place, first thing in the morning the Military was going to do their briefing on the threat the Tau'ri posed but they needed some more time to study the new ships.

"They are hiding something about their religion," stated the Genom member "They didn't bring a member of any of their holy orders down for the meeting."

"I agree that is strange, but I can understand their reasons on why they didn't." admitted Laura Roslin as the others looked at the former teacher. "They said they had a history of violence in their religious orders which explains why they don't bring an official member of their faith to the meeting."

"I hate to say this but Sectary Roslin may be correct," added Priestess Gologa as she took a breath "We have to remember that until the grand conference there was multiple times when our own holy orders almost fought each other. Earth may not have been so lucky."

"True." Admitted President Adar

"Also remember we have 9% of our population who don't believe in the Lords of Kobol but instead in only one god," added Laura Roslin as the others blinked at something they already knew. A sort of unspoken deal had been reached after the terrorist group the Soldiers of the One had been crushed. Those who believed in the only one god was left alone as long as they didn't break the laws or make any attempts to gain political power. True on two of the world's Sagittarian and Genom not believing in the Lords of Kobol was against the law but they were general ignored.

"Are you saying that Earth don't believe in the Lords of Kobol?" inquired the Sagittarian member

"We do not know why they were banished from Kobol in the first place, could their lack of faith be it?" inquired Priestess Gologa as the spiritual advisor to the President spoke up again.

"No, I would say that is highly unlikely but let's say they have a higher percentage of none believes say double ours at around 20%. Combine that with their different religious groups of the Lords of Kobol not coming together could explain why they have so many different nations and why they separated religion from their government." explained Roslin as Adar nodded his head.

"Yes, that would make a lot of sense," admitted Adar as he thought about it. If it was true and around 20% of the Tau'ri does not believe in the Lords of Kobol it could be a major political problem. Something that had to be dealt with the Sagittarians and the Gemenon would be outraged about it and the other colonies would not be happy either. In time however they would adapt to it and Earth would join with their cousin, having all the children of the Lords of Kobol together meant solving any issues that may come up. "I will talk to Doctor Woolsey in private maybe he can share something in private that he wouldn't be able to share in a meeting."

"Mr. President we need to get going." Said an aid

"Well Ladies and Gentlemen shall we get going." Confirmed Adar as the Cabinet stood up and headed toward the waiting Raptors.

It took only a few minutes but soon the Raptors where airborne and heading toward the zoo, Adar could not help but look down at the massive amount of people gathered on the mall and in the streets. Tonight was a night of celebration and they were going to put on the best show they possible could.

**While the colonials where preparing to throw a party four Eagle fighters where on patrol just beyond the outer world of Mani in the Valhalla system.** Just like in any system where the Tau'ri had a base there was always combat air patrol flying around the system.

"Phoenix flight this is Valhalla command we have three unknown contacts coming in at grid 14F." came some nameless voice at Valhalla command center.

"This is Phoenix lead, confirm contact at grid 14F heading there now." Confirmed the American pilot as he lead his flight of four Eagles outside their normal patrol route which ran between the outer defense stations and headed toward the unknown contact.

"Lead I have visual on the contact." said Phoenix three "It's a rock."

"A rock?" inquired Phoenix lead as he moved into visual range and yes there is was. A small asteroid maybe ten feet by five feet with a postmarked surface, there was two more nearby about the same size. The other eagles where checking them out as he did a quick scan with this Eagles scanners. It picked up what he expected mostly Iron ore and other elements nothing of note. Just floating leftovers from when the planets formed.

"Valhalla command, this is Phoenix lead we found the contacts all natural, small asteroids." Reported Phoenix lead

"Phoenix there hasn't been any asteroid mapped in that area before." stated ground control

"Must have drifted in from either another system or a very distance orbit," reported Phoenix Lead as the ground controlled thought about it for a moment.

"Yes, that is it.," confirmed Ground control "We need you to map it so we can add it to the database."

"No problem command." said Phoenix leader as he uploaded his information to the battle network, within moments the flight of the asteroid was mapped and it was determined to not be a threat or worth capturing for mining. With that done phoenix moved off and headed back on patrol. What the Eagle Pilots did not know was that they were being photographed.

Hidden inside the Asteroid where multiple cameras and wireless broadcast capture systems, along with a small jump drive, which would deactivate once the jump was done. These Asteroids had stated out as nothing more then left over pieces of rock but had been transformed into spy systems for Colonial Intelligence.

With the eagles gone these flying spy asteroids would pass through the Tau'ri defense line and begin their mission of taking photographic and capturing wireless broadcasts all of which would be saved to multiple hard drives. After leaving the system their jump drives would reactivate and they would begin the multiple day journey back to the waiting Battlestar.

**Well I hope you liked this Chapter and the two intelligence operations done by both the Colonials and the Tau'ri. Now until next time I hope you keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13 The Avengers**

It was the hottest ticket in the colonies as the most powerful people from all 12 worlds headed toward the event. Most had to come in through multiple military checkpoints which surrounded the Zoo while the highest government officials came in multiple Raptors. The black Owl transports of the Tau'ri came in moments after the Raptors carrying the government officials had cleared out. The whole event was being televised as a selected group of news reporters where allowed in under the stick understanding that if they tried to get any information from the Tau'ri visitors that they would lose all press passes to government events. What they record spoke loader then any word; the colonials did not really know how to interact with their Tau'ri cousins.

The central hub of the zoo was full of small food stations allowing people to move from station to station to try different food. The best and most famous chefs in the colonies operated all the station and there was only the best food being presented. Even so, it was clear that the Tau'ri looked with some of the traditional food of the colonies as if they did not understand what it was. The few colonials which tried to talk to the Tau'ri found that they had very little to talk about that was not political. They could not talk about sports since they played different ones, same goes for movies and almost every other thing. The colonials tried to talk about Religion but got the cold shoulder from the Tau'ri.

"This taste a lot like Lamb." said Jack as he took a bite out of the small piece of meat, which some Chef had given him. A lot of the food seemed to be based around Greek food of some kind, well aside from the Chef, which was severing cooked insects, which looked like giant grasshoppers.

"Don't you hate Lamb?" inquired General Shepard as both of them stood in their dress uniform.

"I hate it," confirmed O'Neill as he took another bite "However we have to be polite."

"At least they are severing alcohol." Stated General Shepard as he took a deep drink on the green drink which the Colonials where serving.

"This is so weak I can hardly call it alcohol," countered Jack as he eyed some of the Colonial military members who were looking at them, sizing them up. "So when does the operation in Pegasus begin?"

"We join the fleet in four days; one ship will either stay here to finish up or head home." explained General Shepard, both of them knew that it was almost certain that the colonials had bugged the place but Dr. Woolsey was going to tell them that tomorrow.

"What is on the schedule for tomorrow anyhow?" inquired O'Neill

"Meetings in the morning followed by lunch, Aerilon food I believe." explained General Shepard "Then more meetings followed by dinner Aquaria food this time and then some sporting event called Pyramid."

"I had a few people come up and try to talk to me about that." Admitted O'Neill "I had no idea what they were talking about. Guess we find out tomorrow."

"So how are your kids doing?" inquired General Shepard "I haven't seen little Samantha since you were transferred to Valhalla."

"As good as any preteen can be." confirmed O'Neill as both men nodded their heads at that.

**A few yards away multiple colonial military officers were looking at the two men dressed in bright blue uniforms.** The uniforms of the Tau'ri made no sense, while the colonial military had different colors for the different branches blue for the Navy both space and the small water based, Green for the army and grey for the marines. The Tau'ri had multiple colors somewhere dressed in white others in black, others in blue and multiple different shades of green, it made no sense to the Colonials. Some of the Tau'ri even had strange long narrow not short and broad swords hanging from their hips.

"I wonder what they are talking about?" inquired Admiral Nagala as she looked at her counterpart in the Tau'ri. "One of their ships destroyed three of our ships and crippled another. They are clearly a threat to the colonies."

"I know but we are taking steps to solve that issue. If our recon mission did find their world then we will have some real information." explained General Mike Roose to his navy counterpart, both officers knew that the intelligence people had guessed from the direction that the Ark Royal had headed in that the Tau'ri where in one of two systems. They had taken their shot and sent the probes at the closer of the two system. "We were not ready to deal with something like that but hopefully we will not have to worry about that. I am going to push for a trade of military personal so that we can gather more information."

"I agree that could get us more information but they would expect us to allow some of their officers into our military as observer and they will gather information." countered Admiral Nagala, neither of them wanted a war but as military officials it was their job to plan for the worse outcome not the best.

"It's a risk we may have to take and they already know more about us then we know about them." stated General Roose both the Admiral and the General knew that whoever won the information war would have the edge in any possible conflict. "Any recommendation?"

The Admiral thought about that for a moment, part of her wanted to say to send a high-ranking officer such as an Admiral or General but that would put too much information at risk. They still had to show trust in the people of Earth, suddenly an idea came to her.

"Maybe the son of our newest Admiral." offered Admiral Nagala "I believe he is a Viper pilot on Tauron."

"Maybe, get me the information and some other candidates," ordered General Roose

**Like in any diplomatic meeting there was a whole team of people who were there to advise the leader in this case Doctor Woolsey.** In this case, the man who was the 2nd most senior member of the Chinese Politburo was severing as the second most senior civilian on the diplomatic team. A man well into his 80's and walking with a cane so he did not journey around the welcoming ceremony instead people came to him. Unlike most of the civilian members of the delegation which were either in suits or dresses of some kind the old man was in a Mao Jacket, which included a small pin of the red Chinese flag.

"Well I hope you are enjoying your stay in our wonder city," said a young Colonial official to the elderly man. Having grown up as a member of the Communist party in the People's Republic this old man could smell a spy and this kid was one. Likely sent to him to gather information and since he was so young the colonials must believe that he would act like a grandfather telling stories to a young man.

"I haven't seen that much," reported the old man, Fang Gan, as the Politburo member took a deep of the green liquid the colonials called Ambrosia before looking at the young man which was trying to engage him in conversation.

"Well I hope you have some time to see our great city," said the young colonial officer "This is one of the oldest cities in the colonies, over a thousand years old."

That caused the old man to grin a bit before turning toward a Russian military officer who sat at the table with him. As a much younger man, he had member diplomatic mission to the former USSR Fang Gan spoke in Russian so that the colonial would not understand.

"People have been living in the Beijing area for almost three thousand," reported Fang Gan in Russian as the Russian grinned at the words

"They are fools," answered the Russian in passable Chinese, which caused the old man to smile a bit.

"Yes, they are." confirmed Fang Gan in his native tongue before thinking for a moment "Do you have some Russian Vodka on you this drink they have is so weak."

He had yet to meet a Russian soldier who did not have that on him, and while he never liked most things about Russia most of all the cold, he had come to love Vodka while he was stationed in Moscow.

"Yes, Comrade." said the Russian as he poured some clear Russian Vodka from a hip flask into an empty Colonial Ambrosia glass.

"What is that?" inquired the Colonial officer as he looked at the clear liquid

"Try some." Said the Russian as he poured a shot glass worth of vodka into a cup and offered it to the Colonial officer. "It's called Vodka; it's the native drink of my land."

"Vodka?" inquired the Colonial as he watched the two Tau'ri down their drinks in one go. When he attempted it he gagged on the strong alcoholic content of the vodka, this caused the two of them to laugh.

"Such a child." said the Russian in his native tongue, the green Ambrosia was so weak in his view that it would not even be considered alcoholic in Russia.

"So I bet the people back on Earth are celebrating the reunion between themselves and their sister colonies." said the colonial unaware what the two others really thought of him. "We will welcome you back into the fold and together we will enter a new golden age. The children of the Lords of Kobol"

"They are even more foolish then I though." stated the Russian in Chinese's as Fang Gan nodded his head.

"Tell me, do you have railroads?" inquired Fang Gan as he tried to get some information on something he was actually interested in. He could have read the intelligence report but his reading glasses made his eyes soar better to just ask and save his eyes.

"Railroads?" inquired the colonial as the Russian pulled up an image on his computer tablet and showed it to him. "Oh, yes we call them TBT."

"TBT?" inquired Fang Gan

"Twin Beam Transport." explained the Colonial Officer "Tauron is well known for them, we can arrange a visit for you if you like."

Fang Gan thought about it for a moment, he had loved railroads ever since he was a boy and his Uncle who had been Assistant Railroad Manager had taken him on a rail tour of China. It was that love of the rail, which had caused him to push on the China Politburo and by effect the Chinese's government itself to start the new planet wide railroad system, which was being built between all the major landmasses on Earth.

"I would like that," admitted Fang Gan, there was no way this railroad on Tauron would live up to that in his view but it may be worth the look.

**While the majority of the people at the party where forty and over there was a handful of young kids running around.** Most of them where either the children or grandchildren of the colonials only two of them where Tau'ri.

"Look a lion, like Simba." said Elizabeth Shepard as she pointed toward a Leonis Lion which was only a few feat away from her in its habitat.

"Yes, little one it is." said a woman dressed in a simple but fashionable red business suit.

"Where is its mane?" inquired the six year as the woman blinked.

"It's what?" inquired Laura Roslin as the former school teacher looked at the young girl.

"It's mane." explained Teyla as she looked down at her daughter. "This isn't an Earth Lion they don't have manes."

"Oh." said the six year old as she lifted up a small computer tablet and took a photo of the two animals, before running off to the next habitat.

"Such a pretty little girl." said Roslin to the woman who was clearly the girl's mother.

"Thank, you she loves animals which is why she is going a little crazy right now." admitted Teyla as she watched her daughter take a photo of the Libran Birds. The birds looked like something out of the movies her son watched, terror birds from Earth's prehistoric history.

"Totally understandable and don't worry nothing can happen to her hear." said Roslin as Teyla watched as her husband went to take their daughter's hand.

Suddenly the sound a tapping microphone caused people to turn toward a small stage.

"First welcome everyone to this first dinner of all Thirteen colonies of Kobol." said Mike "As a gift to the people of the 12 colonies of Kobol, our cousins from Earth have given us five animals from their home world. These animals, living symbols of Earth will become our special guests here at the zoo but now allow me to introduce our special guest Rachel Bush of the Columbus Zoo on Earth."

With that Rachel Bush took to the podium and prepared to do her job of introducing and informing people about animals only now she was doing it across Twelve fully populated world.

"Now I will not give you a speech, you came to see some animals so let us all take a look at the duel symbols of the people of Earth." said Rachel as she nodded her head.

With that sign, the lights on the 13th habitat turned on and the members of the 12 colonies saw the animals which the Tau'ri had chosen as one of their symbols. At first the colonials where confused what they saw looked so much like the dogs they had back at their houses, however these dogs where much bigger and had thicker fur. There were four of them, most of them where brown, gray, black or in the case of one pure white. They were about the size of a Caprican Tiger which was tiny compared to their Earth cousin, it was larger than any dog in the colonies.

"Now the animals you see before you is a blended pack of multiple animals we call Wolves. In this pack we have Northwestern, Artic, Grey and Eurasian Wolves." said Rachel Bush "In the wild all these wolves come from different parts of Earth and wouldn't be in a pack together. However just like the member nation of the Tau'ri they have come together to form a pack."

Then the wolves began to howl, that was when the Sagittarian Mountain Ram, which was in the neighboring habitat, ran out of view as it would in nature from predators. Same was true for the massive Tauron Bull ran from the sound of the wolves. The other animal symbols of the colonies moved away from the strange new sound and went into hiding as well, even the predators moved into their hiding spots as the wolves kept howling filling the night with their sounds.

"That isn't a good sign," reported Teyla as she stood beside her husband, she had seen the look of fear that came across some of the colonial faces as their symbols went into hiding.

"It just hasn't heard the noise before," countered John

"Still some people look to animals for signs." countered Teyla as more and more people noticed that the two most holy animals in the scared scrolls went into hiding along with the other symbols of the colonies. "Some of our older members still look toward animals for early warnings about the Wraith."

"Well some people do think animals can give warnings about Earthquakes," admitted John neither one of them where really listening to the zoologist talk about how wolves are pack animals. Instead, he began to look at the Colonials; there was a mixture of confusion and fear as they looked at the wolves. They didn't even take note of when Rachel said all dogs on earth were descendants of Wolves which had been tamed.

"Now, I would like to introduce you to the World Bird of Earth." said Rachel Bush as she lifted out her hand to show that it was covered with a thick leather glove. The colonials where confused as suddenly a large bird flew over their heads and landed on the glove.

It was a bird unlike anything in any of the colonies; it had large eyes with thick talons on its feet, with a mix of brown and reddish brown feathers. Its head spun around in an almost unnatural way as it looked at the colonial party goes with deep yellow eyes. It was not just that it was a bird of prey that threw the colonials off it was the fact that it had just flown over their heads without making a noise. In addition, none of the birds of prey in the colonies flew at night and this one just did.

"This is a Great horned Owl, Owls come in many species but are found on six out of seven continents on Earth. I understand you do not have anything like Owls in your colonies but there are multiple species on Earth. These are night birds which means they hunt at night and have special feathers which reduce their noise," explained Rachel Bush as the owl spun around in her hand to face the crowd. "In stories it was said that the goddess Athena kept an Owl as a pet."

This little bit of news was both a welcome and distained by the colonials. It was the first time that the Tau'ri had brought up the Lords of Kobol which was very welcomed news to them but at the same moment in the Holy Scrolls Athena kept a songbird known as a Sweet Singer as a pet. That was the reason why the world birds of all the colonies where song birds not birds of prey, to have a bird of prey as Earth's bird was as threatening. The colonials did not really listen to Rachel instead; they were talking to each other softly about what their cousins had just done.

"**Dr. Woolsey may I speak to you in private for a moment?" inquired President Adar as Rachel Bush spoke to people about two symbols of Earth that had been given as a gift to the colonies.**

"Oh course." said Woolsey, he had been expecting this, the two of them moved off to the side away from the main party.

"I will cut to the chase, most of the cabinet and I know your hiding something about your faiths," explained the President of the Colonies as Dr. Woolsey nodded his head.

"Yes, we are." admitted Dr. Woolsey

"You have some monotheist groups among you and you're worried because you listen to some of the news reports about what we did to them in the past," explained the President as he took a breath. "Do not fear we have no intention to do anything to your people, those things happened a long time ago and we have small monotheist groups in our colonies. They live side by side with us with no real issue besides those who launch terrorist attacks."

"We too have a history of Religion terrorism some of which is very recent," confirmed Dr. Woolsey

"Every society has that and besides with the blessing of the Lords of Kobol we can work through anything," stated Adar with a smile.

"President Adar there are multiple issues related to religion and our history that we need to share with only the highest members of your government before it becomes public knowledge here in the colonies." Started Woolsey as he took a drink of Ambroshia, in truth, the drink was weaker then wine and looked like mountain dew. It would have been rude not to drink so he drank as part of the diplomatic game. "However this places it too public for that, would you and a handful of people selected by you be open to a secret meeting sometime tomorrow?"

"Yes, we can arrange that but if I am inquire besides religion what do you want to share with us?" inquired Adar

"The true shape of the Galaxy." said Dr. Woolsey as Adar blinked not understanding what that meant.

**Unaware to the leaders, religion would be thrust into the front in an unexpected way that very night.** Sitting on a bench away from the party was Torren Emmagan Shepard, the son of Teyla and Kannan. He had never known his true father Kannan that is why he commonly used his stepfather last name Shepard. He had stayed away from the party he had no interest in the speeches or looking at the animals like his little sister. He wanted to escape his thoughts about how the man he considered his father had accidentally killed his real father. To escape reality he had decided to sit on a bench away from the party and watch a movie on his tablet. He was so focus on the movie that never noticed the newswoman and her crew walking toward him.

"Hello there, I am D'Anna Biers." said the humanoid Cylon, as Torren paused the movie before looking up at her.

"Can I help you?" inquired Torren

"Yes, are you from Earth?" inquired D'Anna. She had quickly noticed that unlike the Colonials who had four buttons on their suits the Tau'ri only had three. This kid had only three buttons on his suit.

"I am Athosian." answered Torren which confused D'Anna and the people watching the live feed from her camera. "My stepfather is John Shepard."

That seemed like a good enough answer for the colonials; their first thought was that Athosia must be a colony of Earth. They could not even imagine that Athosia was in fact in another galaxy and that Torren didn't even have a drop of blood in his body which was descended from the people of Earth.

"Well we were wondering what you were watching?" inquired D'Anna

"I am binge watching the Marvel Cinematic movies, I am on Avengers Infinity War Part 1." explained Torren before looking down at the tablet, the movie was near the best part. "Want to watch?"

"Of course." said D'Anna as Torren hit the play button. The Cameraman moved over and zoomed in on the small screen in the young man's hand. It was not perfect but they could pick up the image and the sound coming out of the speakers. The colonial news crew back at the main office switched to their feed to get the first look at the popular culture of Earth.

What they saw confused them, the first image they saw was a figure dressed in a red and blue uniform swinging from what looked like webs moving around a city. The entire city was a battleground as what appeared to be a small group of people did battle. The camera panned away from the swinger to a man and woman fighting on the streets, the man had a bow and arrow while the woman was shooting handguns, the sound of a machine gun filled the air as a man with a silver arm came out of an ally carrying a heavy machine gun. He was shooting the countless number of henchman just like in any number of colonial movies. Then a green monster came busting through a wall throwing what had to be the bad guys henchman against the walls.

If that was not confusing enough to the colonials, watching behind the giant monster man came a swarm of insects which over ran the other villains. The image zoomed in to show someone wearing a red and black suit running beside the insects, he lifted his hand as a woman with insect like wings swooped down and picked him up. Then it showed another man in flowing robes standing next to a woman both of them shooting bolts of energy out of his hands. All of this was confusing to the imagine of a robot looking man appeared on the screen before firing some energy blasts into the window of some giant spaceship which was hovering over the city.

"A cylon?" inquired one of the camera man.

"That is Iron Man," laughed Torren "It's a man in a robotic suit of armor."

"Earth will not fall to you." said Iron Man as a giant purple man in golden black armor stood before him.

"It already has you just don't know it yet." said the giant figure as he flicked his wrist. When he did this a wave of energy sent Iron Man out the window. "Earth's Mightiest Heroes? So sad I was expecting a better fight."

The scene changed to show Earth from outer space as a lone spaceship moved toward Earth.

"Looks like Thanos is here." said a furry creature looked like as if it had a natural mask of some kind.

"New York, why do the bad guys always attack New York?" said another man with a long red jacket.

"We have to hurry; Thanos must not get his hand on Vision's Infinity Stone." reported a man dressed in strange armor with a large hammer in his hands.

"Listen Thor, we are the ones who picked you up since your rainbow transport beam got destroyed by your crazy brother." laughed the furry creature

"Shut up Rocket." ordered the man in red.

"Wait did he just say Thor?" inquired D'Anna as Torran hit pause, he was looking forward to when Thor and the Guardians of the Galaxy joined the Avengers on Earth.

"Yes, Thor the God of Thunder and one of Earth's mightiest hero, what of it?" inquired Torren not releasing what he had just said.

**Well I hope you liked this chapter and the little surprise with Marvel's Avengers showing up, what can I say I love the Marvel Movies and I thought it would an interesting way to cause political issues. Now as for the animals ever I picked for earth, some may be upset about my picks but I always loved wolves and Owls have been my favorite bird since I was in fifth grade and went to a summer camp where I took care of a pair of Barred Owls for a week. In addition, the link between Owls and Greek Mythology was interesting to me in a story like this. Well I hope you liked this story and please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75 **


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14 While they Slept**

While Caprica City and by extent the most powerful members of the Colonial government was asleep the firestorm was brewing across the news networks as the slight insults that the Tau'ri had given then were blown out of proration by the news media. The fact that the people of Earth had a bird of prey as their world bird was made to be seen as a sign that they are warlike and to have that bird be attached to Athena was just a sign of their stupidity. Then it there was the fact that Thor who was the living incarnation of evil was a hero to Earth. Lastly the imagine of the Sagittaron Ram and Tauron Bull both of which are holy animal freaking out when the Wolves of Earth howled was a said by some of the holy orders as a sign of pending doom. There was of course the counter points raised by the more reasonable guests on the news programs but reason broadcasts did not get the ratings that news programs needed to survive. Then it leaked of a secret meeting between Dr. Woolsey and the highest member of the Colonial Government leading to more talking heads to ask what are they hiding.

While the colonials were focusing on the popular culture of Earth and reaction of some animals and if it was a sign life on Earth had changed. On Earth life was getting used to a new normal. When the knowledge of the Stargate, other worlds and races was released the governments of the world had forced to take kind of pause on the economy which had been booming for years because of the massive 35 nation trade alliance. Once trading began, on the world stock markets, there was of course the natural drop for the first couple of days but they had made that back as it sunk in that completely new market was now open.

Business where rushing to gain access to the new technologies and already plans were being drawn up for massive space port in orbit between the Earth and Moon to be used by the civilian fleet of ships which was coming in the future. Since there was only one Stargate and the Military was not going to let that out of their hands any time soon the civilians would have to use ships. A hidden mass train system, which had been pushed by the Chinese's government to move cargo too large to be beamed by train. The rail system, which was not finished yet, would connect every major land very aside from Antarctica. Earth had come to accept a new normal and people had come accept it.

Other companies mostly shipping and air travel where worried about massive job losses because with beaming technology why would anyone need them. However it that was unfounded since not everything could be transported with beams since the number of satellites needed to move all the people around would be so high and the larger the item the more power it took to transport it. All that was countered by the new massive job market on Valhalla, which people were lining up to move.

**On Valhalla Samantha O'Neill was sick and tired of this, she sat in her classroom as another new student was being introduced to the class.** This was the seventh new student in her class since the Stargate was revealed and the school was now full of new students from nations all over the world.

"Take the seat over their Adora." said the teacher as blonde hair girl took the seat beside Samantha.

"Hello, I am Adora Petterson" said Adora as she offered her hand to Samantha.

"Sam O'Neill."

"Can you believe this place," said Adora as she looked out the window at the city, in the sky they could see one of the two small moons, which was still viable. "My friends back home couldn't believe it when I told them I was going to another world. Can you believe we are on a different planet?"

"Not that big of a deal." admitted Sam as she looked down at her school tablet to see what lesson she what they were having for lunch.

"Not a big deal?" inquired Adora stunned. "How could you say that?"

"I grew up here," explained Sam "In fact I wasn't even born in this galaxy. I was born on Atlantis I have only been to Earth maybe a dozen times."

"Really?" inquired Adora stunned "What was it like?"

"I was only four when I left." admitted Sam as suddenly a siren filled the air.

"What is that?" inquired Adora as she and the other new students looked around.

"Just the monthly shield check." said Sam with a shrug before raising her hand "Mr. Witmore will we have to go to the bunker, I thought they are still painting it."

"No we are staying her today, besides we should let the newest addition to our classroom see what is protecting them." explained Mr. Witmore as all the students looked out the window as a bluish wall of energy came out of the tallest sky scrapper in the city. The energy shot down to the seven shorter sky scrapers to get an energy boast to cover a larger area. Within moments the entire city was encase in a protective shield.

"Amazing." said Adora as they looked at the shield, which protected the city.

"Yes, it is." confirmed Sam as she tapped a button on her tablet which brought up her book. She had grown up around this technology one of her first memories was sitting on her father's shoulder as they watched a meteor shower over Atlantis so technology like this was as normal to her as a microwave oven.

**While the Colonials believed that they were the number one priority among the Tau'ri a far more important event was taking place on the planet that the Colonials had never heard of.** On the forest, filled planet of Gaia a table had been set up in the middle of a forest clearing. The table seemed to have grown out of the ground, with roots for legs and a top which while looking like bark was totally smooth. It even had limbs and leafs growing at it from different parts. The chairs, which surrounded them, had a similar construction.

Sitting around the table were forty-two representatives of different powers across the galaxy. They range from the small only a single world to the massive with hundreds, they also ranged from the weak with only a few hundred-ground soldiers to the powerful with countless warships.

There host was the oldest race in the Galaxy, the Nox who were one of the original members of the Alliance of Four Great Races. The Nox had been gone into a self-imposed isolation only coming out rarely. With advance cloaking technologies capable of hiding not only themselves but also their cities, even the Ori had passed them by without detection. Now they returned to the Galactic stage but only by some arm-twisting by the Tau'ri.

The opening talks had been tense but mostly because the seven free Jaffa factions almost killing the different factions of the Lucian alliance. They had taken a break and now most of the delegates where either talking to each other in one on one talks or glaring at each other.

"Well this is has been interesting," said General O'Neill as he took a drink of water, he along with the British Prime Minister where here to represent the Tau'ri and get what they wanted out of any deal.

"Not in the slightest, they are going at each other too rough, the talks may fail and you know what that means." stated the PM as she took a drink of her own water. The Nox where playing host to this event after some arm twisting by Stargate command which mostly involved informing them that if they didn't host this conference then the different sides couldn't agree on a meeting place. No meeting place meant no peace talks, which would, led to war. The Nox wanted peace above all things so they were playing the part of Switzerland on Earth, a neutral place that all sides could agree upon.

"At least we are getting what we want." confirmed O'Neill "And besides for the Jaffa and the Lucian alliance we have deals with the other powers."

"That was the simple bit," explained the PM "Most of those nations only wanted to have control over their own systems and nothing more, the larger the area they want the harder it will be. The only reason why we got the worlds we wanted is because the other powers believe they owe us for defeating the Goa'uld and ORI."

"It helps that we want words that are unpopulated and near Earth," added O'Neill as he remembered the map of the galaxy, which was being debated. One of the things Earth was pushing for was to have a many solid areas of control.

"True." Confirmed the PM "However if our history is any sign of our future the worlds we gained this day will only last us so long."

"General O'Neill." Said a voice over his radio ear piece, like all the other powers that had warships had one in orbit. Almost all of them where Ha'tak classes while the Tau'ri had sent the Britannia.

"O'Neill."

"Sir, we have an information request from Colonel O'Neill on Caprica," said the radio operator on the Britannia.

"Really alright go ahead," said O'Neill as he listened to the request. "Excuses me Prime minister but there is someone I have to talk to."

With that, O'Neill walked around the table toward one of the most senior and respected members of the Free Jaffa, the old warrior Bra'tac of Chulak.

"Hello Bra'tac." Said O'Neill

"Greetings O'Neill of Minnesota." said the old Jaffa freedom fighter as they took each other hands.

"So Bra'tac what do you think of these talks?" inquired O'Neill

"I wish that there were fewer factions." expressed Bra'tac as he looked at the other leaders of the free Jaffa. The Jaffa had once been unified but they had broken apart yet again. "We worked so hard to unite together but I fear that will never happen."

"Well some would say the same of us but we are on the path for that on Earth." reassured O'Neill as Bra'tac nodded his head.

"Maybe but that day is far away," stated Bra'tac "The ORI may have broken us when they destroyed our home world but we were already breaking away. The Goa'uld forced Jaffa to fight each other for thousands of years and all that bloodshed has led to a long history of hating each other. We came together because of our hate of our masters but beside that there is little we share."

"And then there is the Lucian Alliance factions." added O'Neill as Bra'tac nodded his head again.

"Yes, I must admit they have some points about how we were the instruments of their enslavement." admitted Bra'tac "But the Jaffa factions will never hand over the planets they want and they want the shipyards they took."

"And what about you?" inquired O'Neill

"I am an old warrior; I have no desire to see another battlefield." answered Bra'tac "There are other planets in this galaxy where we can build ships, the main issues is that aside from a few Jaffa most of us don't know how our technology works. Most of those Jaffa who did were high-ranking members in the command of the Goa'uld they served and most of them died when the system lords fell. We are living off the remains of the empires which we were once slaves in."

"Bra'tac I have a question for you about Goa'uld history." inquired O'Neill as he decided to get to the reason he came to talk to the elder Jaffa.

"What is that O'Neill?"

"Have you ever heard of either a planet called Kobol or a battle between Thor and Ares?" inquired O'Neill

"I never heard of Kobol but the last major Asgard offensive against the Goa'uld was against the system lord Zues and his top general Ares." explained Bra'tac "But that was over two thousand years ago. Why do you ask?"

"We found a group of people called the 12 colonies of Kobol which worship gods like Zues, Ares, and the other members of the Greek pantheon." explained O'Neill "In their holy scrolls they said Thor did battle with Ares on Kobol before they left in some exudes to their new worlds. We believe they are likely enslaves but the worlds they are on have no Stargates so we have no idea how they got there."

"I am sorry O'Neill but I can't help you, all I know about Ares was normally teamed with Athena and fell to Thor while defending her on the fields of Raluch." explained Bra'tac as O'Neill raised an eyebrow.

"Raluch, never heard of that world." admitted O'Neill

"It was Zeus's main world and was lost when the Asgard took it out." explained Bra'tac "Only a handful of Jaffa made it off and so not much is known about what happened. Sorry that I couldn't be much help."

"You were more helpful then you think." said O'Neill as he tapped his radio and relied the message to the Britannia which would add that information to the Asgard search.

**Hundreds of light years away from Gaia in the void of space between the Valhalla and the waiting Colonial Battlestar a sleek vessel pulled up alongside a group of three small asteroids. **This vessel was a Cylon raider and it was carrying out its mission, unlike the Tau'ri the Cylons knew that these asteroids where in fact colonial spy drones. They knew this because they had helped their enemies find the planet the Tau'ri had claimed. Sending a quick wireless broadcast the raider opened a datalink with the small simple computers in the asteroids. They did a quick download of the information making sure to destroy any photos taken of the raider, then with the information downloaded it jumped away and reappeared in view of a gathering of seven cylon basestars. The raider flew toward the lead ship and the waiting group of humanoid cylons waiting to look over the information.

It took a few hours but before the sun was rising over the Caprica City a meeting of the humanoid cylons had already started.

"So five what have you learned?" inquired the third humanoid cylon model.

"Much, but there is so much information that the colonial drone gathered that it will take some time to go through it all." explained the five as he leaned back a bit in his chair. "Most of the information is totally useless entertainment shows and the like but we still have to go through it for information. They keep talking about something called a Stargate but they haven't said what it is."

"The Stargate?" inquired the six

"We have no idea; this is just a brief sample and the Tau'ri press seam to share the same habit as the colonials have of reporting one thing for five minutes then talking about what it means for twenty." reported the Five. "We are still going through the information however I am more interested in the belief that the colonial government has reached about the Tau'ri."

"And what is that?" inquired Cavil

"That a larger part of the Earth's population may not believe in the Lords of Kobol." Reported the five "And the evidence from the drone backs that, they don't call Kobol, Kobol they call it Valhalla."

"Do they believe Thor is their God?" inquired the third "In that clip from that movie called Infinity War part 1, Thor was one of Earth's mightiest heroes."

"I don't believe so." said the three "Who puts their God on a team of heroes? It is likely just fictional, the Colonials have made an action movie where Hades is a hero, Earth likely did the same with Thor."

"I do not know but before the conference the President was worried that Earth may have a larger monotheist population maybe as high as 20 percent?" stated the five

"Why 20?" inquired Six as the other Cylons blinked "Why couldn't the humans of Earth have found the path of the true one God? Maybe they are more enlightened then their cousins."

"Could be." admitted four "If it does this raises some issues."

"What issues?" inquired Cavil

"One of the reasons why we all agreed that the planned strike against the Colonies was right because they don't believe in God and that they committed sin by enslaving us." stated the two. "If the people of Earth have shaken off the chains of the Lord of Kobols embraced one God that isn't a reason to harm them. Also since they never enslaved us it would be a sin to kill them."

"They are humans what more do we need?" snapped Cavil surprised at the line of thinking that the other models where taking.

"The issue has to be raised." defended the six

"None of it matters right now; we need more information before we decide what path we should follow." stated the three

"Agreed." said the four "I recommend that we hold another meeting tomorrow once we had time to go over the information and maybe this meeting between the President and this Dr. Woolsey will answer some of our questions."

"Fine." said Cavil as the meeting of the humanoid cylons ended with more issues raised then questioned answered.

**On Earth a message from Gaia came into the Asgard History research program in Sao Paulo Brazil. **This large glass and steal building in the heart of the largest city in Brazil was among the most heavily guarded in the nation**.** It was here that research into the Asgard core was centered at, it was here that they developed all the technologies which was cleaning the world. From the population scrubbers which was cleaning the air around the world from the decades of population and the water scrubbers which where cleaning the lakes and rivers for the same reason. Besides uncovering all the hidden technologies in the Asgard core the center also had the job of making the complex history and long history of the Asgard into a form that the people of Earth could understand.

"We got an inquest from General O'Neill about the history of a world called Raluch in the Asgard Core." said one of the office managers to one of the researchers.

"What is its level?" inquired the researcher

"Only a level 3." said the manager as the researcher nodded his head, a level three was the middle of the road request and it was a history request on top, which meant it was not as important. The researcher looked up at the clock on his computer and smiled.

"Since it is a level three it can wait, the husband and I have tickets to the football game tonight. Brazil vs Chile in the World Cup Qualification should be good." Said the Researcher as she took the file and placed it on top of a small stack on the side of her desk.

"Lucky I heard that the tickets are impossible to find." stated the manager "Well have fun and make sure you get to this by end of work Monday."

**The sun was just rising over the Caprica city and already there was a massive line forming to get into the colonial zoo**. The gates opened early and there was almost a stamped of people as they rushed to see the new animals, when they arrived they found the wolves either sleeping or sniffing at the different parts of the habitat.

"They are just large dogs," stated one of the visitors as he and a massive crowd looked at the wolves, which were still getting used to their new habitat.

While most where looking at the animals themselves others looked at the displays that the Tau'ri had set up with information about the animals. Four of the six displays had simple background information on the animals themselves including where they could be found and how they act in the wild. The fifth display had some of the mythology related to wolves including the story of Romulus and Remus who founded Rome. The final display shared some science of wolves and showed how modern dogs are descended from them. This caused a few eyebrows to raise among the colonials, since dogs where gifts from Artemis who had made them out of clay on Kobol. A question began to form in some of their minds about if Dogs where descended from Wolves which could only be found on Earth then how did they have dogs.

While some of the colonials watched the wolves, others headed into Aphrodite's garden only to find something that was believed next to impossible. All the songbird which called the indoor garden home and who's singing went on night and day was totally quiet. There was no sound whatsoever it was as if the birds knew that death was near. Sitting on a tall post in its own separated habitat sat the Great Horned Owl. Its golden eyes scanned the large area that the colonials had put aside for its personal use.

"Why is so quiet?" inquired a young girl as the colonials simply looked at the living symbol of Earth

"This is a sign," said another one of the visitors as a small a Sweet Singer ran under the tree. This living symbol of the colony Libran had somehow managed to get in through a small gap in the chain link fence. The finch-sized bird had no idea what was in the tree above it however, the Owl did. Its golden eyes locked on the smaller bird feeding on some seeds on the ground.

"Get out of there!" yelled someone in the crowed as the Owl spread its wings and descended down on the small bird. The Sweet Singer took off but it only got inches off the ground before the Talons of the much larger Owl slammed into its body. The bird began to scream as the predator began to eat it.

The sound of the sweet singer screams caused the other birds to panic as they flew around before landing again this time as far away from the Owl as possible.

"By the Lords of Kobol." exclaimed one member of the crowd as the symbol of Earth began eating the symbol of another colony. For its part once it finished its meal the Great Horned Owl flew up to the highest branch in the tree that was located in its habitat. There after a few minutes of cleaning its feathers it closed its eyes.

**In the Presidential estate a meeting was taking place between President Adar and his top political advisor was taking place. **The other advisors where due to arrive in a couple of hours for a the other meetings.

"This is bad; the media is talking about how reactions of our symbols to the Tau'ri symbols are signs form the Lords of Kobol." explained Adar's Main political advisor, already the president was looking at a tough reelection fight in just over a year. "To have a bird of prey as one of their symbols what where they thinking?"

"They are just animals, the staff at the zoo has even told me that the reaction isn't uncommon." Stated Adar "They said a few years ago they brought an injured wild Bull into the zoo and it freaked out at the new sounds from the animals from other colonies. Just give the animal's time to get used to the new sounds."

"That is logical which is why it will never play well in the media," said the political advisor "It is easier to say it is a sign from the Lords of Kobol, makes a better sound bite for the news. The other parties are asking questions about what the Tau'ri and you are hiding."

"We aren't hiding anything, they want this meeting to clear the air." stated Adar

"Doesn't matter if it is true or not what matters is how it looks and it looks like we are hiding something with this planned secret meeting which leaked." Stated the advisor "Then there is a whole Thor and what they said about Athena having that Owl creature as a pet, there are a lot of talking heads on TV asking questions."

"And the more they talk the more the people start listening to them." Stated Adar "What do you recommend?"

"We cancel this secret meeting and ask instead that Dr. Woolsey instead speaks before the Quorum, there it can be said you have nothing to hide." explained the Advisor

"Woolsey said that it was information that he wanted to share with the highest member of the government." advised Adar "It could be information which could cause trouble between our people and he wants to give us a head up."

"The trouble is already here and from what you said he basically admitted that they have some monotheist minorities and they are worried about backlash from our religious groups." Stated the Advisor "It would be more damning to all if they it came out in some leak of some kind, better to get it out in the open and be done with it."

"And what if he refuses to hold a talk with the Quorum?" inquired Adar

"He must Earth is a colony of Kobol and they have no way to refuse to answer a call of the Quorum." stated the advisor

"The Secretary of Justice would disagree with you, he says that Earth is its own world and we have to treat it as such." countered Adar, his advisor brushed off the idea.

"He is a Libran Lawyer he lives in a world of black and white by the book laws, not the real world," stated the Advisor. "The people right now are willing to give these Tau'ri time to return to the fold but they will never accept them being separated; besides I bet that there is pressure on Earth to unite the children of Kobol.

Adar thought about he, he seemed to be in a no win situation where if he tried to force the Tau'ri to talk before the Quorum they may reveal something that the government was not ready to deal with. On the other hand, if he tried to go forward with this secret meeting his political future may be in trouble. He would have to risk insulting the Tau'ri if he did not then he would never hear the end of it and beside Dr. Woolsey said it was going to come out anyhow.

"Alright but make sure the request comes from the Quorum." ordered Adar as the Advisor nodded his.

**A few blocks away Colonel O'Neill rubbed his temples, he and other members of the Earth delegation was paying for the events of last night, they had made fun of the green colonial drink only to find out while it was weak compared to the Earth drinks it wasn't a good idea to drink it on mass. **Adding to their headache was the issues that came from the movie clip showing Marvel's Thor in the Avengers.

"Who knew Thor was such a big of an issue?" inquired Woolsey

"I did." Admitted Jack as the others around the table looked at him. "There was a painting of a battle between Thor and Ares in their capital building. I tried to get information from the Asgard core but they have a messed up way of listing information so I put in a request of from teams on Earth, still waiting."

"Why didn't you inform us about the issue with Thor?" inquired Woolsey

"Could anyone predict that they would see the Avengers? asked Sheppard as he came to Jack's defense.

"What is done is done." stated Fang Gan as the elder statesman leaned back in his chair with his morning tea. "We needed to address this sooner rather than later. What we need to do is address it and then get the colonials focus on something new."

"What do you recommend?" inquired Woolsey

"There is that world cultural performance that we have been preparing what if we show it them early?" inquired Fang Gan "It would give them so much to talk about that this Thor issue will be brushed aside. To put it simply give them something else to talk about."

"Could work maybe show it tonight if possible, General how soon could we get it here?" inquired Woolsey as Shepard blinked and thought about it for a moment.

"Not long, it is only a three hour trip to Valhalla depends mostly on if a ship is free to transport it." reported Shepard

"Get on that, see if we can get it here in time for tonight if possible." ordered Woolsey as an aid walked in.

"Sir, its President Adar he wants a word with you." said the aid as Woolsey took the phone. After a brief talk, they hung up.

"Well?" inquired Fang Gan

"They want me to address the Quorum just after lunch today about multiple issues and he as agreed if we want to we can present a show about our history after the Pyramid game tonight." explained Woolsey "They already have something planned for half time."

"Well then we better get working on your speech," stated Fang Gan.

**A few miles away from Caprica City center, a blue van was moving down the street heading toward the city center.** Sitting in the driver seat was an older man dressed in the blue uniform of the largest package delivery company in the colonies, Hermes' Wings. The van had to logo of the company was clearly visible and no one paid it any mind.

"Making the turn." said the driver to the people in the back, normally there would be only packages but instead there six other men all dressed in civilian cloths however the assault rifles in their hands was nothing any civilian could get.

"We do this for the Lords of Kobol," said the leader of the assault team. "The animal's symbols of our Lords have warned us, now we must take action before the Tau'ri can destroy us. We are the Heads of Cerberus and we protect the Lords of Kobol where others do not."

"For the Lords of Kobol;" said the Driver behind the wheel as he made the turn, which would lead him to the very front of Colonial Station. In truth they most members of the group wanted to wait to better plan an attack but the Lords of Kobol had warned them through their animal symbols of the threat these Tau'ri processed and the false followers of the Lords in the government would open the gates to these Tau'ri. They had to be stopped and the Heads of Cerberus would do just that.

"Ten minutes." said Driver as he made the final turn and headed down the long road, which would lead them to the station. There was a lot of military personal around but they seemed to be more focus on keeping an eye on the Tau'ri not another delivery truck.

"Get ready!" yelled the assault team as they strapped on their body armor and the armbands with the logo of their group it. They wanted everyone to know who had hit at the heart of the Godsless Colonial Government.

**Well I hope you liked this chapter, I had planned to update this earlier but I kept going back and making changes to this chapter. Now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15 Cerberus**

It was a normal morning in the Colonial Station, well as normal as it could be considering that the top floors of the former colonial train station turned crossroads of the capital. The main part of the building was now a shopping center with movie theaters at one end and a full concert hall on the other. The bottom floors still had trains coming in and out but the tracks had been connected to the subway system. The top floors were where the Tau'ri had taken up residence and that was clearly visible. At the grand staircase which leads up the two stories to the lobby of the hotel stood soldiers of the Tau'ri in full dress uniforms. These unformed soldiers where more to provide photo opportunities for the thousands of people who came into the building every day. Walking around the inside the building where the actual security forces of the Tau'ri.

Since they did not want to scare the people of the colonies none of them had on their true combat gear including the power suit, instead they were dressed in whatever nation they were from standard Urban Battle Dress Uniform. Over this, they had a standard black bulletproof vest combination and a cap on their heads. They had their rifles slung across their backs or resting in their hands, to the people walking though the station they seemed no different from their own colonial marines or army. The only real difference was that the Tau'ri had the strange rifles and their uniforms where different.

"Another boring day." said a member of Colonial O'Neill Special operation team Specialist Kim Relies as the United States Army EOD team. As she looked at the stores, just like any mall they had different kinds of stores and even small carts selling different items in the center of the large walkways. The building was open all day and some of the stores where open all day as well.

Back on Earth that would be called 24/7 but on Caprica it was 26/14 since they had a 26 hour day and their week was 14 days long to honor the 14 major lords of Kobol. In the holy scrolls, it was said that each of the lords looked out over one of the tribes minus the Lord of the Underworld, Hades.

There was some difference between the one of the major things which all the Tau'ri had been briefed on was that to the Colonials Gaia was the Protector of the Earth. On Earth Gaia had a different origin then in the colonies, in the colonies Gaia was the Goddess of Grain, Agriculture and harvest. Gaia's story and background was closer to the Goddess Demeter in the Greek Pantheon then anything else.

"We can only hope," confirmed her partner on patrol 2nd Lieutenant Mike Riley as they moved toward the main entrees of the mall. There were a few people looking at the two of them but most paid them no mind. There was still Caprica City police officers patrolling the mall but their commanders had taken away their guns for safety reasons.

"I could go for some coffee," said Kim as she looked toward what seemed to be a coffee shop.

"There is coffee in the lobby of the hotel if you want some," said Mike, both of them knew that the colonial government had given the Tau'ri some money for their guests to use.

"Sir, where is your need to sample another culture." inquired Kim as Mike looked at his watch. "When in Rome?"

"Command this is patrol 7, Specialist Riles wants to take our break in the local coffee shop at the main entrees?" inquired Mike into his radio

"Understood Patrol 7, be back on patrol in 15 minutes." said Command as the two headed toward what they believed to be a coffee shop.

The sight of two armed Tau'ri members caused the people in the shop to look up in surprise. To the Tau'ri it was clearly a coffee shop, there where people drinking what looked to be coffee and eating what appeared to be breakfast food. Some of them where reading old fashion paper newspapers while others were on their computers, overall it had all the appearance of a Starbucks coffee store on Earth. The two of them moved to stand in the line in front of cash register.

"Ah…" said the man in the business suit in front of them, it was clear that he wasn't sure how to talk to the two of them. "You order up there and you pay for it over here."

"Oh, thanks." said Kim as she and Mike moved toward the counter where the server was almost shaking in excitement as these two Tau'ri came up.

"Hello welcome to Morning Phoenix Breakfast House what can I get for you?" inquired the server

"Maybe you can help me, I want something to help keep me awake but I want something sweat as well." explained Kim "What do you recommend?"

For a moment, the server simply looked at Kim confused for a moment.

"Yes, I know what could work." confirmed the server as she looked at her manager who nodded her head. "What do you want sir?"

"Can I get whatever you call that and a cup of whatever you call that." said Mike as he pointed to bagel like food item and what appeared to be a pot of simple black coffee behind her counter.

"Yes, of course." Said the server

"So we get in the other line to pay?" inquired Mike

"No sir, your meal is on the house." Said the server as the manager nodded his head, around them the customers where taking photos. "Just wait here, we will do a rush job."

"Thank you." Said Kim as the two of them waited. Within moments, two cups appeared in front of them along with the bagel like food. Both of them picked and up and everyone watched as Kim took a drink.

"It's good, taste like a Cappuccino." Explained Kim as she took another drink, at the same time Mike took a bite of his bagels.

"This is good too." said Mike "More of a donut taste then a bagel."

"Well we are so happy that you enjoy this," said the manager as the two moved out to find a place to sit.

**Just outside Colonial Station a blue van with the Hermes Wings Package delivery company logo pulled up. **No one paid the van any mind, there where thousands of them running around the city at any given moment and packages where being delivered to the multiple business which operated in the center. The only thing slightly odd was that they came to the main entrees inside of one of the side ones but that wasn't unheard of either. When a man came out carrying a large package under his arm and a clip board no one gave him a second glace.

**Up on a perch across the large grass opening from the Colonial Station was the Cylon War museum. **On its roof was one of the multiple colonial military sniper teams, which was providing over watch for the area, most of their duties involved watching the massive crowds of people and the coming and going of the Tau'ri.

One of their snipers was scanning the front entrees and saw the man in blue carrying the package and raised an eyebrow. He had worked for Hermes Wings Package Company in his youth and he noticed that this guy had his Hermes Wings patch on his right shoulder instead of his left which is where it was supposed to be. He followed the man up until he disappeared through the stations large old oak doors.

"Command this is Marksman 58, just saw something a little out of the ordinary…" started the sharpshooter as he turned his gaze toward the blue van parked in front of the entrees. Just then he saw the van move suddenly, instantly the crowd around the van began to panic and run, the van was in his line of sight but he saw two man dressed in body armor and with a rifle appear from behind the van. "Titan fall, I say again Titan fall main entrees!"

Titan fall was the code phase for an attack and instantly everyone listening to the colonial wireless network instantly went on guard. It was too late as the men coming out of the truck raised their weapons and fired into the crowds outside the building. The sniper aimed at the first man and fired, the bullets flew down the barrel before hitting home in the back of the terrorist's head.

**Inside the sound of gunfire naturally caused everyone to look toward the source of the sound, Mike was reaching for his radio when a man outside the shop pulled something that looked remarkably like a Russian AK-104 out of a large box. **

"Get down!" yelled Lisa as the man in blue aimed his gun toward the long line of people who were waiting to pay. He clearly had not seen the two Tau'ri members sitting at a table away from the main entrees, the gun went off sending the rounds through the glass which framed the outside of the shop. The rounds that they were firing was not the standard rounds that they could get at any gun store but in fact military anti-Cylon explosive armor piercing rounds, these bullets exploded when they hit something hard enough to stop them. In this case, it was the line of people waiting in line.

It was something out of a horror movie as each round that hit the civilians exploded; it caused a rain of blood as limbs went flying. Following their first instincts Mike and Lisa took cover behind a fake rock wall, which separated different areas of the shop. Mike was reporting into his radio as Lisa swung her rifle up and flipped the safety off; she brought her rifle up and opened fire as more men dressed in body armor came through the main entrees firing their own weapon.

The first of Lisa's rounds hit home, square in the center of the man in blue chest, sadly, that was also where the body armor was strongest. He stumbled backwards from the fire but did not fall down. His fellow terrorist seeing where the fire had come from returned fire at the two Tau'ri soldiers. The fake stone wall began to fall apart as the explosive rounds hit it. If it were not for the concreate center of the wall it would have fallen apart long ago.

"We need to get the hell out of here!" yelled Lisa as she reloaded her Standard Rifle.

"If we leave then these people die!" yelled Mike back as he looked at the scared looking colonial civilians cowering in the corner, one of the young girls was holding what appeared to be a camera phone.

"I wasn't talking about leaving," snapped Lisa as she pointed toward a much thicker wall where the part of the store formed an L shape. From that corner, they would have better cover and still be able to fire on the attackers.

"Alright." said Mike as he popped up and fired at the attackers. When he fired, Lisa ran the small gap between their location and the wall. Once there she opened fire as Mike ran to the cover as well.

"It's our lucky day boys!" yelled the man in blue "We have some of these Tau'ri right away! Advance!"

The five remaining terrorist began to move forward the combination of their numbers and the high explosive rounds forced the Tau'ri to take cover. Two of the terrorist where even armed with light machine guns which combined with the high explosive rounds proved devastating.

The Terrorist were about to turn the corner and take away all the cover away from the two pinned down soldiers when the heavy fire another location began to go off. This caused the two soldiers to turn toward the source only to see four of their fellow Tau'ri members firing on the terrorist four where armed with rifles.

The fire from the weapons dropped one of the terrorist carrying a rifle, under the surprise fire from the new arrival the terrorist pulled back heading down a different walkway. With the gunfire dying down Mike and Kim joined the others as they kept up their fire on the terrorist.

Outside the Colonial military was moving into position, because of all the terrorist attacks on Earth they had different plans to deal with armed terrorist. While the soldiers of the Tau'ri rushed into the fight to engage the terrorist with enough fire to turn their attention on the armed people, the colonials waited and gathered their forces. The colonial's forces where gathering as people began to rush out of the building, then everything changed as the blue delivery fan exploded in a giant fireball. Causing an already panic situation even more confusing.

**Inside Colonial Station, the Tau'ri had already begun moving the defenses to protect the upper floors activated and the reaction defense team moved out**. These solider where dressed for battle with the power suits and heavy weapons.

"Where are they?" inquired Colonial O'Neill as he grabbed his rifle and headed toward the grand staircase, which lead down into the mall. His answer came with when bullets began hitting the railing of the staircase near the bottom. O'Neill and the others members of the team took cover even as the bullets began to bounce off the shield that they had installed to control anyone from getting to the upper floors.

"What the frak!" yelled one of the terrorist as he watched his bullets exploded against an unseen barrier. The fire from the approaching Tau'ri, which outnumbered the terrorist 19 to 4, forced them to fall back yet again. They pulled back into the last place the Tau'ri wanted them to, a children's toy store full of scared children and their parents. With the terrorist pinned down in the store the shield protecting the main entrees was lowered for a moment allowing the combat equipped Tau'ri soldiers to move into the fight.

**At the president estate President Adar had heard the explosion from the car bomb only moments **after his security detail head rushed into the room.

"What the frak is going on?" inquired Adar

"Not totally sure but there seems to be an attack going on in colonial station?" reported the security head.

"Are the Tau'ri attacking us?" inquired Adar as the security head shock his head.

"No terrorist strike." stated the Security Head.

"Gods Damn it." Cursed Adar as he turned on his TV, it did not take long all the news channels already had camera crews at the station and now they went live. What they showed caused Adar to fill with dreed they showed bodies lying on the marble floor of the station, the crewmembers were taking cover behind whatever they could find.

"If you are just joining us we have shots being fired at Colonial Station." said the newswoman "We can't be sure but it appears that a small group of heavily armed terrorist has attacked the Tau'ri and the Tau'ri have responded with fire of their own. We can't be sure but the terrorist seem to be armed with anti-Cylon high explosive rounds being fired with assault rifles and at least one machine gun."

"Frak!" cursed Adar those rounds where the most dangerous rounds that could be fired from a standard rifle. They had be produced on mass to deal with any Cylon threats but they were strictly controlled and the military had to account for every single case. He turned back to the TV as the sound of machine gun fire filled the air, which is when he saw that the camera pointed toward a storefront. It appeared to be a toy store and there was Tau'ri soldiers surrounding it. Coming from within was the outline of a figure firing a machine gun.

**Following the machine gun came screams as the camera panned away to show a boy maybe 14 years old lying on the found his arm was totally gone. **Even as the bullets kept firing a Tau'ri shoulder came running from somewhere, he grabbed the boy and dragged him to where the news crew was taking cover.

"Excuses me can you tell me what is going on?" inquired the newswoman as if she was interrupting a movie star on the walkway to a movie.

"Shut the fuck up and let me save this kid!" cursed the Marine as she looked down toward the now arm less boy. "You're going to be alright."

"I can't feel my arm. I want my Mommy," cried the boy as the Royal Marine pulled a small vile from her pack. It had a red cross attached to the side; the film crew watched as she ripped off a plastic cover and poured a silver powdered over the wound. Then before the eyes of the crew and everyone else watching the channel at the time, the bloody stump became covered with a silver substance and the blood stopped.

"What's that?" inquired the crew

"Medical micro robots, they will stop the bleeding for a couple of hours," explained the marine as gunfire hit their barrier, each round caused a small explosion to go off. "Jesus Christ, what the hell are they firing?"

"Anti-Cylon rounds, they explode on impact," explained the reporter, he had been a member of the military to help pay for his schooling so he knew what was being fired at them.

"Alright get yourselves out of here and make sure this kid gets to a hospital," ordered the marine before she moved off to another location.

**Finally, the colonial military had arrived on the scene, what they found was nothing short of a blood bath. **The anti-Cylon rounds proved extremely deadly and coming in right behind the military assault teams where the medical teams and they had their work cut out for them.

"Colonial marines, coming in!" yelled the leader of the colonial assault team as they saw that the Tau'ri had the toy store surrounded.

"Hold fire!" yelled what appeared to be the leader of the group. The colonials moved to take up positions around the store in some cases they took cover right beside their Tau'ri counterparts.

"Sargent Wills, Colonial Marines." said the leader of the Colonial Assault team. "Sorry we are late we got held up by the car bomb."

"Colonel O'Neill United States Air Force Special Forces." said O'Neill "We got four terrorists inside with 11 hostages."

"How do you know that?" inquired Sargent Wills as O'Neill held up a small palm size computer. It showed what almost appeared to be a Dradis screen only it had multiple dots on it.

"Life sign detector I can tell where they are in store but not who is who," explained O'Neill as he turned to yell into the store.

"You in there, who are you and what do you want?" inquired O'Neill

"We are Cerberus, we want the freedom of the Colonials and we will want you to die!" yelled the man in blue "If you come in here we will kill everyone in here."

"Well that isn't going to happen," stated O'Neill as he turned to Sargent Wills "Ever heard of this Cerberus group?"

"Yes, but they are a radical religious group they want to follow the strict rules of the Holy Scriptures. They see the Colonial Government as an illegal force since some of the laws don't follow the Holy Scriptures," explained Sargent Wills as O'Neill nodded his head. "They want a totally religious government with them in charge of course."

O'Neill had not taken part in the operations in earth against the multiple terrorist and warlords that most of the members of the major militaries of the world did. He had taken part in the war against the Wraith instead; he was not sure which was worst.

"Well they picked the wrong name for sure." said O'Neill as the Sargent looked at him "We have something called Cerberus and they will not like it one bit."

That is when the sound of heavy footsteps filled the air, the colonials turned toward the sound only to see something they had never seen before. For a moment, they thought it was a Cylon but then they saw there seemed to be a person in the suit. It was maybe seven-foot tall mechanical person, under one of its arms a duel mounted mini gun and the other seemed to have a large grenade launcher folded back under it. Behind it came another one of these giant machines with similar weapons only and finally came another until there where three of these things standing in the middle of what was normally was the food court.

"Frak me sideways." exclaimed Sargent Wills

O'Neill grinned, the Cerberus battle armor was a small walking tank, it wasn't fast by any means but what it lacked in speed it made up in the ability to go where tanks and larger vehicles couldn't without much risk. It could walk down alley ways and stand guard in inner courtyards. It was also the only personal shield that was currently in production.

Sadly aside from the one personal ancient shield which had major problems such as an inability to hold anything they hadn't found a way to do personal shields which would stand up to modern combat. Every power source which could provide a strong enough shield in full combat provide too heavy to be carried by the induvial solider. The Cerberus could carry a small Naquadah generator that produced a strong shield to its front. It did not have enough power for a shield to surround it so the armor was always deployed in groups of three or more so that they could form a circle. In a circle they could protected a shield, which would protected them from small and heavy arms.

O'Neill looked down at the life sign detector and just as he hoped, two dots came running from the back to the front. Almost at once the sound of four guns shooting began at the Cerberus, the explosive rounds where hitting the shields causing a strange display as a wall of explosion formed.

"Team five you are clear to enter." Ordered O'Neill, near the back of the neighboring store a group of eight Tau'ri shoulders in full power suit armor lined up as another placed a small explosive charge on the wall. With a single, twist of a detonator the drywall exploded opening a hole in the back of the store. With the sound of gunfire and explosions none of the terrorist knew that they know had soldiers moving in behind them. They first moved to where the hostages where gathered and while six of them aimed their weapons in the direction of the terrorist two others lead the hostages out of the store through the hole in the wall.

With that done, the four moved toward their final task, ending this fight. There were two major walkways with shelves full of toys on either side and they split up into two groups of three. The first terrorist to realize something was wrong was when the barrel of a Tau'ri rifle was placed to the back of his head.

"Drop it." Said the Tau'ri as the terrorist dropped his gun. He looked to his left only to see that one of his partners also had a Tau'ri rifle to the back of his head.

With two guns suddenly not firing the man in blue turned around to see that two of his members now had guns to their heads and there was four other gunman pointed at him and his last free member.

"Drop your rifle!" yelled the soldiers, slowly both of the lowered their weapons as the Tau'ri moved in. All four of them where slammed onto the ground and their hands placed behind them as they were restrained.

"We are clear!" yelled the solider as O'Neill and Sargent Wills entered along with a handful of Colonial and Tau'ri soldiers.

"You used those machines as a distraction," stated Sargent Wills as more colonial and Tau'ri shoulders moved through the multiple stores searching for any wounded and survivors. With the life sign detector it made the task easier but it still had to be done.

"Yes." confirmed O'Neill as he looked around at the mall, which had been turned into a battlefield. Medical teams where rushing around trying to save the people they could. However O'Neill did not have much hope, the exploding rounds had been devastation. The terrorist had fired into every store they had passed by. It also since every round that exploded on impact with flesh meant that each wound was worse than it should have been. It was if the colonials where not firing bullets but where in fact firing small grenades. "This shouldn't have happened."

**O'Neill walked up stairs and out of view of the colonials, he reported to Shepard and Dr. Woolsey before reaching for his radio. **Within moments he was onboard the Cloaked Odyssey which was in orbit over Caprica's North Pole. There was something he needed to do and he forced an operator off the radio and pulling a few strings with his rank he got what he wanted.

On Valhalla, it was just before 11 at night and the phone began to ring.

"O'Neill." said Cassie O'Neill as picked up the phone.

"Cassie, it's Jack," said Jack as he sat on the Odyssey, Cassie instantly knew from her husband's tone that something was not right.

"You alright?" inquired Cassie as her heart rate picked up.

"Fine, there was a terrorist attack unknown number of Colonials dead." explained Jack "I wanted you to know before the media gets a hold of it and you see it on the news."

"The news hasn't been covering what you're doing on Caprica that much," admitted Cassie as calmed down, she understood what her husband was doing. She had been with him long enough to know that he had two copping methods to stress normally he would make a joke or he wanted to hear so something about a normal life.

"And a firefight with machine guns firing exploding rounds will get their attention." explained Jack "How are the kids?"

"Good, it's Saturday tomorrow so you know what that means?" inquired Cassie she could hear her husband nod his head.

"All day Soccer games but don't the Rogers have their football party this weekend?" Stated Jack as the two of them talked for a while before Jack let his wife go. Cassie hung up and placed the phone back on the charger before turning off the lights and headed upstairs as she did she checked in on her children. All of them where asleep in their beds at least for a few more hours, she then went to her own bedroom and lied down on her side of the bed. Almost instantly, she felt their dog jump up on the bed and cuddle up to her legs. Part of her wanted to kick the dog off the bed but he would only jump up after she fell asleep.

**Back in Colonial Station, Dr. Woolsey and General Shepard stood before the grand staircase which lead up to the hotel. **They were surveying the scene in front of them; the colonials had been gathering the dead in the food court before putting them in body bags to be taken to the Caprica City morgue.

"Surprising that no one of our own died." admitted Woolsey the Tau'ri had made it through with only minor injuries such as flying shards of glass cutting into flesh while the colonial dead was 75 dead and 125 wounded. Some of those wounded were in critical condition and would likely not make it.

"Almost everyone here is Special Forces or elite unite of some kind and they have all seen action in some way or another." explained Shepard, Earth military forces had been busy the past couple of years with operations in Pegasus and the military actions against terror groups and failed states around the world. "Still this was pointless."

"There we are agreed General." said President Adar as he and a small group of aids and an even larger group of guards walked up to them.

"President Adar I know we agreed that I would give a speech to the Quorum." stated Woolsey as Adar raised his head.

"The Quorum can wait, it will wait." stated Adar "One can't expect you to make a speech only hours after a firefight broke out, it will wait for tomorrow. As for the events tonight we plan to go forward with them."

"You want to hold a game after this?" inquired Sheppard stunned.

"We cannot let these terrorist win and it will give us all a place to come together and morn those who have gone into the embrace of the Lords of Kobol." explained Adar as Shepard and Woolsey shared a look between each other.

"Very well, but we want more security added including some of our own soldiers." added Woolsey

"No problem." Confirmed Adar "We want to honor everyone who died here today, together we can show everyone how strong our bond is."

**Well I hope you liked this chapter, I remembered that the Colonials had anti-clyon rounds and so I decided to make a type of my own which explode on impact. Now until next time I hope you keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16 The Lights**

Just as Jack O'Neill predicted the mass shooting at a shopping mall with machine guns caught the attention of the news media on Earth. Thanks to the video cameras attached to the power suits of the Tau'ri soldiers it gave the news front line imagines of the firefight between the terrorist. It was the leading story on all the news networks for most of the people of Earth it was the first time they had even heard of the Colonies Kobol. Even so it wasn't all day coverage of the shooting like it was in the colonies. Maybe it was the distance or the fact that the other stories involved the high level talks on Gaia between the major powers in the Galaxy, the war in Pegasus and all the new technology from the Stargate but the news agencies from Earth covered it and moved on to more interesting news to their videos.

**Another group focused on the attacks, the humanoid Cylons where already had a planned meeting to discuss what they learned from the Colonial Spy drone pass on the Tau'ri world when word of the attack reached them.**

"So you had nothing to do with this?" inquired the three as she looked at the first humanoid Cylon model. It was his job to keep track of the terrorist actions inside the colonials; they did not want the Colonials to be on a high level of alert when they strike.

"I can't possible know the actions of every radical groups in the colonies." Stated Cavil "And I am not the only weapon dealer, they must have gotten their weapons from another supplier."

"Can we focus on what I have learned from studying the Tau'ri broadcasts?" inquired the five

"Very well," confirmed the six as the five took a breath.

"From studying the news sources we have confirmed some believes." started the Five "The Tau'ri are not worshipers of the Lords of Kobol."

"You mean that they have another God?" inquired the two

"They seem to have multiple faiths and judging from the intercepted broadcasts of their faiths surfaces." stated the five "The two major ones seem to be called Catholic and Islam."

"And do they worship multiple gods or only one?" inquired an eight

"Hard to tell, the Catholic talk about the only son of God who died for the sins of humanity." Explained the five

"This raises more issues but I believe we series need to discuss if we want to go to war with these Tau'ri." Inquired the six

"I can't believe what you're saying!" snapped the one "I thought the plan was to get the Colonials and the Tau'ri to fight each other so that we could beat them both."

"And how do you think the average colonial citizen will take this new about the faith of their cousins?" inquired the four "Not well and it may be for our best if show ourselves to the Tau'ri as peaceful and interested in only peace with the Tau'ri."

"Did we learn anything else?" inquired the one

"We have spotted multiple cities on the planet and what appear to be shipyards on the surface," reported the five "More importantly we have learned that the Tau'ri are at war."

This caught everyone's attention, since this was captured wireless broadcasts it was unlikely to be any trick.

"Who are they at war with?" inquired the two "A civil war?"

"No, they said they are at war with some group called the Wraith." said the five "In the Pegasus Galaxy."

"Are you saying that not only are there aliens but that the Tau'ri can travel between galaxies?" inquired the eight

"Yes, and judging from the history broadcasts the Tau'ri where until recently not even as advance as the Colonials but they won not one but multiple wars against aliens and reversed engineer their technology. They talked a lot about two groups the Asgard and the Ancients the most." explained the five "From what they reported it seemed that the Asgard gave them all their technology before they died and we are talking millions of years of research and development. They also talk about the benefits of the Ancient legacy."

"My God." said a Six as they all tried to process the information "If this is true then the Tau'ri are much more powerful than we ever thought possible. Millions of years' worth of technology the ability to travel between Galaxies and who knows what else they is capable of."

"This changes everything." confirmed the four as all the models looked at each other confirming what they all felt. Even the One model confirmed that the game had changed and the Cylons had to change as well if they wanted to come out on top.

**A hyperspace vortex opened as a Hadrian's class transport ship entered Caprica's system. **This was not unexpected by the colonials, what surprised them was the size of the ship. It was the same type as that had been present at the battle between the Ark Royal and the Pegasus battlegroup. The massive ship passed safety though the line of Battlestars before heading into the atmosphere. Once in the atmosphere the ship was escorted by vipers toward the main military base outside of Caprica City.

"By the Gods." said one of the ground crew as the massive ship came in extended some landing legs. The colonials had nothing that large, which could lift off the surface of a world. The colonial military had ships the same size as this Tau'ri ship but they could not fly in atmosphere they were space ships and did not have the power to stay up in atmosphere.

With the ship landed the entire top of the ship opened up to show a massive flat deck containing multiple cargo containers.

"Are you the ground crew?" yelled a man on the landing down to the group.

"Yes!" yelled the crew member up "Alright then I have some stuff to unload for you, you got the trucks and I am sure you want to go through them for anything out of the ordinary."

"Well this ship is out of the fraken ordinary?" yelled the ground crew up

"Frak?" laughed the Tau'ri Solider "I guess that is your version of the F word."

"I guess so," said the ground crew not knowing what he was really saying, that is when the trucks came up. They wasted no time as the cargo containers where lowered onto the flatbed trucks, they would be scanned by the Colonial x-ray scanner and the bio and radiation scanners before they were sent to their destination. Most would be heading toward the colonial station while others were heading toward the stadium.

**Altas Area was located on the edge of a small river, which ran though the southern edge of Caprica City, the famous stadium had been renovated multiple times over the years however the giant statue of Altas remained standing in one corner of the oval shaped stadium. **Armed Colonial Marines surrounded the entire area and checkpoints had been set up five miles in every direction and there was another checkpoint every mile with three additional checkpoints within the final mile.

If there was a safer spot in the 12 colonies, it was not known to the Colonial military, as fans made the long and time-consuming journey through the checkpoints. Even when the game was pushed up by an hour to make room for the special show by the Tau'ri.

In any normal game between the two rivals of Caprican Buccaneers and the Tauron Bulls, the stadium would be packed but this was not a normal game. This was a going to be a show for the Tau'ri and that got every player on edge including the Captain of the Buccaneers, Samuel Anders. The star player was on edge as he got his gear ready. He stood and tried to make his normal pregame pep talk to his fellow players but even he had to admit that this was not a normal situation. Finally, they moved to the tunnel and ran out onto the field to the cheers of the record-breaking crowd. Moments later their opponents ran out of their tunnel, normally this would be when the pregame handshakes would take place and the visiting team would get the ball.

However instead the field was covered with seventy-five flags held at each corner by members of the Colonial Military.

"Oh Lords of Kobol." Started the holy woman as she began her prayer, the stadium was deadly quiet as the prayer kept going, blessing all those who died. "So say we all."

"So say we all," said almost everyone in the stadium, then a single bell was rung to honor the dead.

**Up in the VIP box which ran around the stadium about half way up President Adar sat beside Doctor Woolsey other members of the Tau'ri and Colonial government. **There was about an equal mixing from both sides, there was food being severed and for the first time Colonials where getting a small taste of what was normal for their Earth cousins, since on one of the trucks which came from Valhalla was bottles of wine, beer and other liquor.

"So Doctor Woolsey does Earth have similar customs?" inquired Adar as he took a drink of the same wine that Woolsey was drinking. Overall, he found the strange red liquid good, maybe a little strong to drink on the scale normal for colonials but still good. He looked around it seemed like more of the Tau'ri where having a beer but Woolsey had offered the wine first.

"Yes." confirmed Woolsey as the flags where carried off the field along with the bell. "Normally we a bell once for each victim."

"A minor difference." added the Sectary of State, Nikola Condas as the players moved toward their starting positions, since the Tauron Bulls where the visitors they would have the ball first.

"Agreed." confirmed Fan Gang as the elder man drank some rice wine

"What is the most popular sport on Earth?" inquired Nikola Condas, he had a Tau'ri beer and he had to admit it was very good.

"That is a little bit hard to explain." Admitted General Shepard as he took his own seat beside his wife, their children were sitting in a neighboring box with "Uncle" Ronan and McKay. "See for most of the world that is a sport called football but in my home nation we called football soccer and we have a totally different sport called Football."

"So you have to two sports called football?" inquired Adar "That seams confusing."

"I even find it confusing," admitted Teyla as the game started.

**In the next box, Colonial O'Neill stood by the sliding glass door, which separated the open-air part of the private box from the indoor part. **He stood with a drink in his hands watching the game; it was a strange mix of Rugby and Lacrosse. While he still preferred hockey he had to admit the game was fun to watch, he did not understand the rules but he could tell when a goal was scored and when a great hit happened.

"This is so cool," said Torren Shepard as he watched the game. "Who is that?"

"His name is Samuel Anders he is the star player on the Buccaneers.," answered a female voice as O'Neill turned to look at the blonde woman dressed in a colonial navy dress uniform. Judging from the flight wings and the patches on her arms, she was one of their viper pilots. She took a shot from her glass before turning back to talk to an older man in an Admiral's uniform. Maybe because they saw him eyeing them so they walked over.

"So how are you enjoying the colonies," inquired the admiral

"Pretty good, wish I was home with my kids." said O'Neill "Colonel O'Neill United States Air Force."

"Admiral William Adama." said the Admiral

"You still go with Airforce?" laughed the woman

"Captain Thrace." said the Admiral in a stern voice

"It is alright," said O'Neill as he took a drink. "I have read the after action reports from our little battle, I am betting this is Captain Kara Thrace who shot down one of our fighters."

Admiral Adama's eyes widened a bit they had kept the after action report top secret, he had only been loaned a copy. They did not want the reports about the battle had played out, everyone in the colonies had seen the videos but it most had not seen the videos from within the ships or the cameras from the fighters, Kara had not been allowed to paint the kill on her viper or talk about shooting down the Tau'ri fighter.

"And what if I am?" inquired Kara

"Nothing really, we saved the pilot and considering how many we got in that little dog fight it isn't right for us to complain," admitted O'Neill as another goal took place and the crowd roared.

"So you're a colonial correct?" inquired Kara as O'Neill nodded "Alright then I don't understand, you seem to be the second in command military wise of this diplomatic mission, wouldn't a commander be in command after your general?"

"The United States only has Commanders in the Navy and even if they did, a full colonel like I am is a higher rank then a Commander," explained O'Neill with a slight grin "My next rank would actually be a one star Brigadier General. I am actually a very high rank for my age."

"Helps that you have a lot of experience." added a Russian solider "And it doesn't hurt that your father is one of the greatest heroes in Earth's history and head of the Tau'ri military."

"Doesn't hurt, but I haven't talk to him in a long time," added O'Neill as Admiral Adama filed the information away in his head, the difference in rank was a minor issue but Colonel O'Neill had just become more important, they would have to pay more attention to him. There was another massive cheer as another goal happened. The play went on for a few minutes before it reached halftime.

"**Gentlemen and ladies welcome to Altas Area for the half time show as your Caprican Buccaneers lead 6 to 5 over the Tauron Bulls."** said the load speaker "We would most of all like to thank out special guest members of our sister colony of Earth, the Tau'ri. Without the quick action of their soldiers and our own colonial marines the terrorist group Cerberus was stopped and countless lives was saved."

There was a cheer from the crowd as the lights dimmed as much as they could in the pre dusk sunlight. That is when the halftime show started; this was a special show which would have presentations about the major history of each of the 12 colonies of Kobol as such the normal 30-minute halftime was extended to fit the show. The first act started as a priest began to read from the holy scrolls about the exodus from Kobol. While the woman was speaking dozens of men and women dressed in what looked to be ancient Greek armor marched out of one of the tunnels, they formed a phalanx as another group of monster looking figures moved out of another tunnel. Two men both dressed in better armor stood in front of each of the groups, one held a golden sword and shield while the other a monstrous hammer.

"They met on the fields of Kobol; Lord Ares led the defense himself so that he could buy the time needed to save his people. While he and other members of his holy guard protected the people from the evils of the brute Thor and his evil followers." started the priest as the two groups moved toward each other and did a well-staged fight, the main spot light was on the actors playing Zeus and Ares. "The battle lasted for hours and finally once his people where safe, Ares and the remaining members of his holy warriors pulled."

The field was cleared as the actors pulled out of the field, moments later music began to play as the first colony was introduce, Aerilon. Five people came out onto the field, two where dressed as farmers carrying different farm hand toys and a bushel of wheat. The next two as a member of a military in full military dress uniform carrying the Aerilon flag while the other was a priest. The final person was dressed as the goddess Demeter the goddess of harvest. Following them came a large group of men and women who did some sort of harvest dance.

They moved to the side as the next group came out, a pattern quickly emerged with the people of the colonies coming out and doing a traditional song, dance or even a historical reenactment of a major event. While there was a show on the stadium floor different images of the worlds where shown on the multiple screens spread out across the stadium. The Tau'ri learned about key events such as the democracy of Canceron, which had a population density near some of the major cities of India. They also showed the massive Acheron River Festival which looked like a cross between Halloween and Marti Gras. After each show there was a moment when the cameras turned and looked at the faces of the Tau'ri.

Then the Tauron show started with the normal music and the marching out of a priest, a man dressed as Ares and four soldiers instead of the normal one. One carried the Tauron flag while the other two carried a flag which caused every Tau'ri eyes to widen and the blood to boil in most of them. They hardly listened to the announcer as a the reenactment of the stand of the 71st Tauron Infantry regiment holding the line against 15 major Cylon attack on the Black Spear hills outside the capital of Tauron Hypatia. For most of those battles, the Cylons had them surrounded and yet because this regiment held their ground and kept the Cylon focus on them they were never able to take the capital.

There was a reenactment of the main battle when the regiment outmanned and running out of ammo resorted to using enemy weapons and even hand to hand against the Cylons which surrounded them. It would have been a brave display but all the Tau'ri eyes where focus on the symbol of the regiment which the soldiers where waving around with pride. When it finished there was a massive roar of celebration as the camera zoomed in on the faces of the Tau'ri. They actually got a photo of a Russian spitting while the looks on the other Tau'ri told the tale something was wrong.

"What is the matter?" inquired Admiral Adama "Does this offend you?"

"The battle doesn't offend us," explained O'Neill as he tried not to listen to the curses coming from the nearby Russian solider "It is that symbol."

"What of it?" inquired Kara confused as he looked at the red flag with a white circle and a black symbol in the center. "It is considered a sign of heroism in the colonies."

"It means something very different on Earth," explained O'Neill "In Earth's history that is the symbol of the Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler."

"Nazi Germany?" inquired Admiral Adama who had a distance cousin who fought in that battle.

"In our second World War, a man named Adolf Hitler became dictator of Germany and waged war upon Europe and North Africa." explained O'Neill "He was a madman who killed millions of people not only on the battlefield but in mass death camps because they had a different religion or that he saw as un pure. That is the symbol of evil on Earth and those death camps called the Holocaust is one of the greatest evils committed in our history."

"I see." apologized Adama as he wounded how this would play out. There seemed to be a lot of small problems in the relationship between the Colonials and their distant cousins but the problems seamed to just keep building and building.

**The second half was like the first with more hard blows and goals, when the game finally ended the score was 10 to 9, with the winner being the home team.** Normally after a victory their would be a mad dash to the exits to get home but they knew that another show was going to happen. For the first time in the history of the colonies viewership of a pyramid game actually doubled at the end of the game. There was a few minutes while the Tau'ri set up. The Colonials watched as the crew set up multiple black pillars, which was all connected to a central pad.

"The Tau'ri have set up a special post game show, now sit back and enjoy." Said the announcer as the entire stadium went black. Almost at once, the sound of a ticking clock could be heard coming from the powerful speakers built into the 9-foot pillars that now rested on the field. Next came the sound of string instruments as suddenly before the eyes of the 70,000 people gathered in the stadium appeared a floating image of the galaxy with all the stars.

There was a gasp as the high tech display stunned the colonials. The galaxy even turned as it quickly zoomed in as the sound of drums kicked in. It began to slow as multiple planets began to fly past in quick order; one had a giant ring then came a massive planet with a red storm. After some asteroids came a red planet then it slowed to show a dark grey planet. For a moment, the camera followed the surface of the object over lifeless dust and rocks then just as the humanoid music kicked in the image panned up to show a blue and green planet covering the horizon.

"Earth." said President Adar as the gasp of seeing Earth like this filled everyone hearts, the camera flashes filled the stadium but the powerful hologram projects dealt with the light with ease. Earth began to rotate around the center of the field, almost as half as tall as the stadium itself, the object that they had seen earlier with the dust and rocks turned out to be a rather large moon which orbited the blue green planet.

Earth was clearly more water then land with massive landmasses separated by two major oceans. The hologram was so realist that they could see the movement of clouds across the surface. Then the planet went dark as the colonials saw Earth at night with all it's electrical light. The music kept playing as different imagines began to appear in the hologram, massive mountains shooting up over the clouds, deep forests, glaciers their ice a clear blue, sand dunes and thick jungles, massive canyons and beautiful reefs where all displayed in almost lifelike colors.

Next came imagines of all the animals, they were all strange to the colonials but also somewhat familiar. The great herds of beasts running across grasslands, hairless creatures jumping out of the water, jungle cats sleeping in trees and a birds taking flight in mass from a swamp.

The colonials didn't know or really care that most of the wildlife images actually came from Valhalla, Project Noah was still getting started on Earth but some day all the animals the colonials where looking at would return to their normal population size on Earth. Because of the Stargate humanity on Earth now had room to spread out giving the animals the room they need.

The drumming began to pick up speed as trumpets and pianos joined in. It was perfectly timed as the camera flew over the sand it lifted up just as the vocals began to show the great pyramids of Giza. Next came more imagines of Ancient Earth, the forbidden City, the Great Wall, Stonehenge, Colosseum, Hagia Sophia, Chichen Itza and others all appeared on the hologram showing the colonials images of the more ancient structures on Earth.

Then came more modern imagines of cities such as New York, Moscow, London, Tokyo, Souel, Washington DC, Rio and other major cities around the world. To the colonial amazement and somewhat confusion the cities didn't look as advanced as there own. Then photos of people living their lives came and they forces those thoughts out for a moment as new questions flooded in.

There was a German man in traditional wear lifting a stein of beer up in greeting. A Japanese monk walking in a shrine, the Sydney Opera House, a Chinese Solider standing in the Tiananmen Square, a Russian Ballerina dancing, a Jewish man praying at the wailing wall, Muslims praying at Masjid Al-Haram and the Pope celebrating a mass in St. Peter's Basilica. The Colonial public did not realized that they had just seen some of the followers of different faiths worshipping and they did not care. Their minds where so focus on all the imagines and the different questions that flooded in.

The final images of the opening event began to come as images of the new Tau'ri spaceships appeared and then the camera flew over the rebuilt Los Angles. Since the Earth Quake had hit there almost five years earlier the city had been rebuilt with new technology from the gate. It looked closer to Atlantis but it was far from its equal but still the site of those thin skyscrapers caused the colonials to gasp. Then came images of the cities on Valhalla, which the colonials did not know was not on Earth. Those gasps was nothing as the camera moved out to sea and then thanks to some editing the water became a blur before lifting up to show Atlantis with all its thin towers framed against the setting sun.

The music died down as the camera zoomed back out to show the galaxy as a whole only this time with the Stargate symbol for Earth over the whole thing. As the image faded away the roar and clapping was almost defeating as Colonial O'Neill and the other Tau'ri grinned. Then the voice of a new person came over the speakers as the music died.

"The People of Earth is made out over a hundred nations spread out on six continents with a seventh under the southern ice sheet. These nations share a complex history which includes multiple wars against each other and conflicts outside the battlefield." said the voice "Now these nations have united in a single joint military alliance to defend Earth and all her people, to demonstrate their new alliance they took up the name which they are now known across the galaxy as, the Tau'ri. Now sit back as we introduce eight of the major nations of Earth and share some of their culture

"The People's Republic of China." said the voice as new music started playing as a spot light fell on three people coming out of the tunnel. Three people walked out dressed in military uniforms; the two men flanked the women who was holding a bold red flag with a star in the corner. The flag was blowing like it was in the wind even though there wasn't any wind thanks to a small fan built into the pole. The two men were holding military style rifles which caused the security detail to move toward their weapons only to stop and turn to face the crowd of colonials. While they where marching the holographic generator was showing images from China, massive cities which looked very slimier to colonial ones only with more people. The music changed into the Chinese's national anthem. The Chinese soldiers marched around the hologram, which showed their nation. Once the national anthem started traditional, Chinese music began as the voice returned.

"The Republic of India." said the voice as the world moved and a new part of Earth was highlighted. Like before, three figures came marching out of the tunnel carrying a flag as their national anthem played. The hologram showed massive cities all of whom were really crowed and dirty, even though the Tau'ri knew the state of the cities had improved greatly thanks to the new technology.

"The Russian Federation." said the voice as new music started playing as another group of three men walked out. These men were dressed in military uniforms only these had fur collars and fur around their hats and long coats. The flag they were carrying was also flapping in the wind only this had three solid bands of white, blue and red. This group was also armed with almost matching style of assault weapons including a bayonet in the front. The announcer as images of strange cities covered in snow appeared, anyone from Earth would recognize red square and the Kremlin in Moscow. Black and white images of men and women fighting in some unknown war to the colonial appeared, a large brown bear appeared as well before the image of the Earth appeared again, the colonials saw that large part of Northern part of the Earth was now covered in the Russian flag.

"The Federal Republic of Germany." said the announcer three figures marched out under the German flag. Like before there was images of from the history of Germany, they had even included images of the darker side of German history in World War II. The last image of Germany was of Oktoberfest and a man holding up a beer stein.

"The French Republic" came the voice as another group of people this time armed with swords walked out. Their uniforms where blue with white gloves and golden strands hanging from bars on their shoulders. They carried a red, white and blue flag consist of strips running up and down. As they marched out images of a tower appears along with interesting art finishing with an image of a women holding up a glass of what looked like some sort of red liquid.

"The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" The globe did not have to move far as the Earth zoomed in on an island located off the coast of France. Once again, new music filled the air only this one was heavy in pipes. The three men which walked out was dressed in a lot of red with large black fur hats on. While the group marched out the images of paintings ancient, sailing warships appeared before moving to black and white images of monster warships. The final images were older women in a crown. Unlike the other national anthems which had words this one didn't which caused a few raised eyebrows among the colonials but not much. Little did they know that the words to the song they were listening to was "God Save the Queen"

"Federative Republic of Brazil," said the voice as imagines of Brazil filled the hologram; there was the images cities and a lot more imagines of animals. The final imagines showed a statue of a man with his arms outstretched to his sides overlooking a massive city.

"The United States of America." came the voice as three men carrying a flag containing multiple stars inside a blue box with thirteen red and white strips. The men were dressed in dark blue tops and royal blue pants. They had multiple metals and a blue shoulder band, which went around the armpit. All of them had caps on and dark sunglasses over their eyes. Under it all they had white shirts and a black tie, the two of them not holding the flag and rifles with wooden stocks with bayonets on the end. While they where marching out images of American appeared, massive cities, farmland, wild open plans, and images of life.

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the 12 tribes of Kobol I present to you the founding members of the Tau'ri." Said the announcer as the image of the earth disappeared to show the strange upside down V shape with a circle on top around it was a circle with other smaller symbols around it.

Like the Colonials, there was multiple shows which included culture from around the world and videos of key events in history. The colonials saw images of key days in the history of the Earth; they all watched the events as the voice over provided some background information. Finally, they began to see images which the people of Earth had seen only recently.

It changed to show something that amazed the colonials it showed a group of little grey figures with big heads and black eyes. Standing in front of them was a man in a grey flight suit, little did the colonials know that they were about to see possibly the greatest event in human history.

"You're the Asgard?" inquired the man

"You have heard of us," said one of the aliens as President Adar began to understand, this was not some joke their cousins had made contact with alien life.

"Nothing but good things." said the man

"We have studied your race closely." Added the second alien

"And what did you learn?" inquired the man

"That your species has Great Potential." Said the second Alien

"Know this there was once an alliance of Four Great Races in the Galaxy, the Asgard, the Nox, the Furlings and the Ancients." said the first Alien "Your race as much to prove before we can intact on such a level."

"You have already taken the first steps toward becoming the fifth race." Said the second Alien

Next came images taken from the some of the soldiers on the fields of P3X-666, O'Neill looked away not wanting to remember where his wife's mother was killed. There was other videos of different battles with the Goa'uld, the first deployment of an Eagle fighter and the battle of Antarctica. The colonials where confused as they saw strange figures in metal masks, the Tau'ri had taken out images of the Jaffa without their armor because they did not want to explain that yet.

Next came videos of the different battles with the Replicators some of which happened in the SGC itself. Then they showed some of the firefights against the Ori. They showed a Daedalus class ship going up against a Wraith cruiser and the siege of Atlantis. The most detailed video was also the most recent being only a few months old. It showed the helmet mounted video of a firefight between a squad of soldiers and an enemy squad of Wraith. It even had a close up image of a wraith.

The final sequence showed a woman sitting beside another one of those aliens, it was actually a recording of the last contact with the Asgard taken from the Core which had become the Legacy.

"I promise we will not let you down." Said the woman

"You are the fifth race, your role is clear. If there is to be any hope in preserving the future it rests with you and your people," said the alien, The final images showed more of earth and it's people along with space. The final image was of Atlantis at night; its lights glowing against the star filled the sky and the dark sea.

The show ended and for a while the Colonials did not know what to do so they did the only thing that came to mind, they clapped most of them hadn't processed what they had just learned. To the amazement of the Tau'ri the people didn't leave and instead of the ground crew coming to take apart the hologram projector 12 groups of people came out of the tunnels. Some of them where the priests or priestess which had come out with their colonies along with the actor or actress who was dressed as the protecting god or goddess however there were other people. Behind each group where two men dressed in robes pushing a large cart, which was covered in what appeared to be different rare metals such as gold and silver beside them where women carrying lamps.

"Ladies and Gentlemen before we end this celebration the different holy orders of the Colonies wish to present for the first time all together since the end of the Cylon war the most holy relics from Kobol, the lights of the Lords of Kobol." Said the announcer as the priests reached into the different case and pulled out a glowing crystal. The priests each handed them to the actor or actress who was dressed as the guardian Lord of Kobol. Then there was another prayer as the lights where returned to their containers.

"That was amazing," said Adar as he clapped, like the other Colonials he hadn't fully processed everything he had seen in the show. "I had no idea they had brought the lights of the Lords of Kobol."

"Teyla did I just see what I thought I saw?" whispered Shepard to his wife

"I saw twelve ZPMs." confirmed Teyla as the massive power source was pushed out of the stadium.

**Well I hope you enjoyed this massive chapter, the colonials have now learned a few things about the Tau'ri and the Tau'ri have learned a few things about the Colonials. I will explain how the Colonials got ZPMs in a later chapter. Now until next time I hope you keep readings. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17 Reactions**

"And welcome back to Pyramid Daily." Said the sports announcer as the former Caprica City Buccaneer player sat behind a desk. Behind her was the logo of the largest sports news broadcast station in the colonies, Colonial Sports Network or CSN. "Normally we would be covering the victory of the Buccaneers over their rivals the Bulls but instead they were coving the demonstration that the Tau'ri had put on for the colonies. To help us with that we have on the set with us from out brother news network Head Anchor of Caprican Nightly News Mike Capaldi."

"I am so happy to be here, Amy." Said Mike with a smile, normally the veteran reporter would be on his own set but the CSN had a studio built into the very stadium. Behind them, they could see some of the Tau'ri ground crew loading up their equipment as other workers picked up the trash in the stands.

"So John tell me did the same thing stand out to you as it did for me, the "Alien"?" inquired Amy as she put quotation mark around the word alien.

"Yes, that was one of the major things which stood out to me." Confirmed Mike

"So do you believe that the Tau'ri are telling the truth or is it a giant joke?" inquired Amy "Because I am sure you know what the holy scrolls say about alien life."

"Yes, I know that the scrolls say that the heavens were made for humanity," confirmed Mike as he took a deep breath "I know that it may be unpopular with some but I find it almost laughable to believe that we are alone, if the Tau'ri have made contact with Aliens then I believe them."

"So you are going out there and saying you believe that the Tau'ri have made contact with none human races?" inquired Amy

"Yes and if you paid attention they showed us multiple different races not just those grey aliens which called themselves Asgard but they talked about having an alliance of four races and that the Tau'ri have become the 5th race." Confirmed Mike "And that raises another issue, they said that the Tau'ri was the fifth race not us."

"What do you mean?" inquired Amy

"Think about it, what reason would the Tau'ri have to unify with us?" inquired Mike as Amy eyes widened, she was a sports reporter who was more at home in a stadium locker room then behind this desk but a destroyed knee had cut her career on the field short.

"Are you saying that you think it is possible that our cousins will not want to rejoin us?" inquired Amy as the very idea that the Tau'ri wouldn't want to return to the fold was almost unlikeable.

"I fear it may be, remember that the only reason why Tauron joined the colonial government was because after all their wars they needed us to help rebuild their world." explained Mike "The Tau'ri as far as we know do not need us for anything."

"But the holy scrolls…" started Amy

"I have information that the highest members of the government believes that the Tau'ri have a higher percentage of people who don't believe in the lords of Kobol, maybe as high as twenty percent which would be double ours." explained Mike "We can't count on religion being the reason they would want to rejoin us."

"As high as twenty percent you say?" inquired Amy

"Yes." confirmed Mike "And if you noticed in their entire display I saw only a handful of imagines which I would recognize as a Lord of Kobol and those where ancient looking statues."

"I admit this it out of my wheel house but what reunification could there be if the Tau'ri don't rejoin the colonial government?" inquired Amy

"The better question is what could we do to force them to join us?" countered Mike "We don't know where Earth is or any colony they have, so if they were to leave we may never find them again. I don't think that is likely because of one major reason and it has nothing to do with religion."

"What is that?" inquired Amy

"Trade." answered Mike "We have twelve worlds full of people that would be a fresh market for any business from Earth and judging from the interest in the Tau'ri our people would buy a lot of Tau'ri culture very fast because it is new. So with that in mind I don't think we can expect reunification any time in our life time. Instead I believe we should expect a situation similar to Tauron before they joined the unified government, the Tau'ri will be their own independent world or worlds."

"Well I can already tell you that a lot of people will disagree with you." confirmed Amy before turning to the camera "And we will be right back after a word from our sponsors.

"**How could they have 12 ZPMS?" inquired Woolsey as he and every high ranking Tau'ri member gathered around a table onboard the Odyssey. **They had beamed onboard the moment they arrived back at the hotel. The sudden appearance of 12 ZPMs and caused the attention to turn from getting to know the colonials and getting at the very least a settled boarder and maybe a trade deal to getting those ZPMs. In the years the Stargate program had been operating they had encounter multiple ZPMs but most where either dead or had been used up. Atlantis had two of the three ZPMs with the last on Earth powering some of the last ditch defenses such as phasing the very planet out of the normal universe. They had wanted to deploy the same defense on Valhalla but to power it for long required a ZPM and Atlantis was near to the Wraith and Earth would always come before any other world.

"We still don't know how the colonials even got here," explained O'Neill "We haven't heard from General O'Neill or the people in Asgard core research program in Brazil."

"It is Sunday there I think so we shouldn't expect anything until Monday." Added Shepard "And that is if we had anything to narrow the search."

"Colonel I want you to contact General O'Neill see what he has learned." Ordered Woolsey as Colonel O'Neill cursed under his breath, he did not like even thinking about his older self but this needed to be done.

"Maybe once we talk to them about what they have we can arrange a trade of some kind?" inquired Ronin as he stood by the window looking down at Caprica.

"I don't think so." explained Teyla "I have a feeling that these are the most holy items in their religion, it would be as if someone wanted you to trade away your holy items."

"So trading for it will be next to impossible and it would also tell them what those things are capable of." Added Sheppard "If they figure out how to tap into that amount of power they would instantly become a major power in the galaxy."

"We need more information," stated Woolsey before looking at McKay "Have your computer program gather every little bit of information on the ZPMs and get inside their military network."

"Alright but if we try to breach their military network too fast we may be discovered." Explained McKay

"That is a risk we will have to take, we need to know about those ZPMs and what security if any is around them." Explained Sheppard

"Do we even know where they normally are?" inquired O'Neill

"I did a quick search in the colonial version of Google and it appears that each of the lights are normally keep in a holy shrine located on each of the colonies." explained McKay as he read the information straight from the tablet computer. "They are hardly ever shown to the public and are only put on display on special occasions."

"So one of each of their world so if we have to steal them we would have to break into 12 locations on as many worlds and to make it even better at the same time." stated O'Neill

"Let's try cross that bridge if we have to in the mean time we need to get more information." Stated Woolsey

**Less than a mile away from colonial station where the Colonials believed that their Tau'ri counterparts was the President estate. **Normally everyone would be asleep but a late night emergency meeting was taking place with only the highest members of the colonial government and military. They were discussing everything they had seen from the display that their cousins had put on.

"So let's address the major issue, do we believe that our cousins have made contact with Aliens?" inquired Adar as he looked at his cabinet.

"The holy scrolls say that is impossible that the Lords of Kobol made the heavens for humanity and humanity alone." Said Priestess Gogola as the religious adviser spoke first.

"Are we really going to let religion blind us?" inquired the only none government member in the room, Doctor Baltar. As the top science advisor to the military and maybe the smartest man in the colonies he had been brought it. "If the Tau'ri have made contact with aliens it may explain everything about them?"

"What do you mean?" inquired the sectary of education Laura Roslin

"Was I the only one who noticed the sudden leap in technology they showed in the display?" inquired Baltar "They showed technology that was at least 60 years behind us to technology that is the same distance in front of us. A jump of 120 years in such a short amount of time takes something special contact with aliens would be one of them. Most of all if that contact came in the form of a war they won."

"Wars." counted Admiral Adama as he stood along the back wall behind some of the other military leaders. "I saw multiple different…aliens, I saw them fighting four different races in that video."

"Yes, and if they reversed engineered those technologies it would explain their great jump." added Baltar

"I am telling you that there is no such thing as Aliens the scrolls say…" started Priestess Gogola

"Priestess, I believe the scrolls with all my heart but we can't use them to make all our decisions." countered Adar, it was an old line he used multiple times while running for president to keep the hard core religious off his back. "We need to consider that our cousins have made contact with aliens and maybe have waged war or wars against them."

"What are the military power of the Tau'ri?" inquired the secretary of treasury "Could they have won a war against Aliens?

"In truth we don't fully know," admitted the secretary of Defense "We have only really seen the power of one of their warships and it wasn't even one of their battleships as they call it. Even so they are a deadly force and depending on how many ships they have could make all the difference."

"In that case we may be in luck; if they just recently got all this technology from a war with aliens means they may not have a lot of ships." explained Baltar

"However if you are correct those crews would be battle hardened." countered Admiral Adama

"So they likely have more powerful ships, veteran crews but we likely have more ships?" asked Adar

"Yes." confirmed the Secretary of Defense "As for their weapons, they don't seem to have the explosive rounds like we do but they those powered suits with shields. As for larger vehicles we haven't seen any of the Tau'ri vehicles besides those in their history videos."

"Are we considering the threat of conflict?" inquired Roslin

"In the military we are paid to plan for the worst case." explained Admiral Adama as the sectary of Defense nodded his head in agreement.

"We don't foresee that as a realist possibility but we have to plan for it anyhow." explained the Sectary of Defense "We have no known points of conflicts of note."

"What of the possible religious strife with them having a higher percentage of none believer or what about their reaction to the 71st regiment symbol?" inquired Roslin

"From what we have learned the Tauron symbol is the same symbol as a man who committed mass murder in their Second World War." explained Admiral Adama "I also learned that colonel O'Neill is the son of their greatest living hero and commander of their entire military."

"Well then it is late I believe we should retire for the night, Doctor Woolsey has his speech in front of the Quorum tomorrow."

**Almost half way across the galaxy from Caprica in the orbit twin suns sat Gaia. This was the planet of the Nox and the background for the largest meeting of different factions from across the galaxy. **They had been at the meeting for four days and while most of the easy to deal with details had been finished on the second day the more complex issues between the major power players in the galaxy was still up in the air. Almost all the smaller factions which only had a single world and who only wanted that had left through the Stargate. Now it was only the power players left on the stage, the different factions of the free Jaffa, Lucian Alliance and the Tau'ri where the major players. Even then, the Tau'ri had only stayed around to help get peace between the different factions of the Free Jaffa and Lucian Alliance.

The Tau'ri maybe it was a reward for their key role in defeating the Goa'uld and Ori had been given almost every world they wanted. It helped that the worlds that they now claimed were for the most part unpopulated and far away from the most of the major worlds of the different factions. If these talks did not fall apart then the people of Earth would have claim to almost 20% of the galaxy. It was by far the largest single area of control by any group. There was some populated worlds in the Tau'ri controlled area so even with large populations but most of those people either hadn't discovered the stargate and the most advanced world had the same level technology as Earth had in the American Civil War.

"They have what?" inquired General O'Neill into his radio as he stood away from the forest clearing which survived as the conference area for the meeting. Maybe it was the Nox's love of nature or they hoped that background would calm people, so far it wasn't working.

"Sir, they have twelve ZPMs." answered the British officer on the Brittiania high above the planet.

"How did they get ahold of 12 ZPMs?" inquired O'Neill "Has the report from the Asgard core come in. It should have been here this morning."

"Let me check." reported the officer high above. "Sir it's only a level three it shouldn't be back until after the weekend is over."

"What I ordered it sent out as a level two." Countered O'Neill, a level 2 request had to be done within a 24 hours or less while a level one ment to do it right now. A level three could take a couple of days will a level four took a week and five took about a month.

"Sir I see that request but it is only a level 3 and with the weekend…oh" reported the operator

"What?"

"Sir, it came in as a level 2 but went out as a level 3 request," repeated the operator his voice shaking a bit. "Someone must have fat fingered the request."

"Well send it again, now as a level 1." ordered O'Neill wondering how much damaged a typo like this could have done.

"Yes, sir." said the operator as the line went dead, his thoughts where still on those ZMPs as he returned to the conference area only to see that the Jaffa factions and the Lucian Alliances factions had decided to change things up a bit, now the different Jaffa factions where arguing with each other while the Lucian Alliance members did the same.

"Sometimes I wish I had never became a General." Cursed O'Neill as he moved toward the British PM who was talking with someone he actually knew.

"Well Jonas." Said O'Neill to the former SG1 member now turned one of the chief leaders of the Kelowna people.

"Sir, it has been too long." said Jonas Quinn

"If I remember correctly the last time we were in the same place together was when we helped your world force those ORI radicals off Kelowna." explained O'Neill as Jonas Quinn nodded his head.

"Yes, and our world is still thankful for all you did to help us when the ORI took us over and all the help you did when it came to rebuilding our world after that." confirmed Jonas

"What we did we did in friendship," said the British PM with a smile even though everyone knew that the Tau'ri had gotten a good supply of mineral resources from the Kelowna. They had also advanced Kelowna technology up from 1940's technology to the mid 1980s.

"Well maybe friendship isn't enough anymore." Stated Jonas Quinn as both O'Neill and the British PM raised an eyebrow. "I know you have just formed the Tau'ri and that the Stargate was just reviled to Earth weeks ago but there is a growing movement on Kelowna. The president wants to hold a worldwide vote on the issue within the year and judging from the support at the moment it will likely pass."

"And what is that?" inquired the British PM

"The People of Kelowna almost two billion will vote to see if we want to change our treaty of alliance with the People of Earth." explained Jonas as he took a breath "to make it simple, they don't want to be allies anymore, they want to be Tau'ri."

"Are you saying your people want to be folded into our government?" inquired the PM

"At the moment the poles have it at almost two thirds of the population for it," explained Jonas Quinn "They want to Kelowna to join with Earth to all become Tau'ri."

"Well this changes thing, I will have to address this with other members of the Tau'ri government." Explained the PM "We had hoped this would come to pass with different worlds so that we could unite all humanity but we didn't expect it to happen so fast."

"Which is why I wanted to wait until all the nations of Earth was united but public pressure will not wait much longer," explained Jonas

"No this is an issue we have to address; we have an issue rising with another group called the 12 colonies of Kobol." explained the PM

"And we have a new issue with them; they have 12 ZPMs serving as religious artifacts." explained General O'Neill as that caused the British PM head to snap around.

"They have what?" inquired the British PM

"They have twelve ZPMs." confirmed O'Neill "We don't know much about how they got it and we have only seen them at a distance so we can't know how spent they are but if they are fully charged."

"Then we have the solution to the Destiny problem." Said the PM

"The Destiny Problem?" inquired Jonas as O'Neill looked toward the PM who nodded his head.

"A few years ago we launched an expectation to an ancient ship called Destiny." Explained O'Neill "The Lucian Alliance at the time launched an attack on the planet we were using to open the gate to the ship using the 9th Chevron. The whole planet went up in the explosion but instead of heading back to Earth, the expectation members launched and journeyed across multiple galaxies to the ship. They have been stuck there ever sense, our only way of communication has been with a touchstone. They sealed themselves in statues pods to avoid resupplying in an occupied galaxy. Their journey should have only taken 3 years but we have not heard from them for 9 years. With twelve ZPMs we may finally be able to make contact with them and bring them home."

Jonas had multiple questions but decided to hold them.

"While they were gone we uncovered more information in the Ancient Database and we believe we can open the stargate to Destiny using 3 ZPMs." explained the PM "We have those but it would be useless unless we have another 3 ZPMs to open the gate on Destiny to Earth."

"So you need three more ZPMs?" inquired Jonas

"More like six, we don't want to take the ZPMs we have away from where they are needed. With 12 ZPMS we could do so much so fast," said the PM with a smile as he thought about everything that they could do with 12 ZPMs in the hands of the Tau'ri.

**It was just before midnight Sunday when the researchers in Sao Paulo finished their work. **The researchers in the Asgard core had to cancel their weekend plans, as they had to come in to work. The researchers where cursing General O'Neill for making them come in. When they finished their work they sent their finished research to both General O'Neill on Gaia, the team on Caprica and a report even went out to the leaders of the big 8 nations. With their work, done and still cursing the researchers went out and had a drink.

**Well I hope you liked this chapter and how I answered the question about what happened with Destiny. Until next time please keep reading, Thanks Wilkins75.**


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18 History or A Lie.**

"So this is a new development," said General Samantha Carter as she read her report about the situation going on in Caprica. Her office in the new SGC was larger than the old one at Earth and thanks to the gravity plating she sometimes forgot that she was actually on the moon. "They have 12 ZMPs?"

"Yes, they don't know what power they have." said her longtime friend Daniel Jackson as he sat across from her in the General's office. "With twelve ZPMs they could do a lot of very interesting things if they knew how to use them."

"Are we going to steal them?" inquired Vala as the former thief jumped to her first instincts, Daniel gave her a look, which instantly told her the answer.

"We don't steal anything most of all Religious items." explained Daniel as Sam nodded her head.

"Didn't you get one of those ZPM's from the Goa'uld when you traveled back in time?" countered Vala

"Stealing from an enemy is very different then stealing from a potential allies." explained Cameron Mitchell. "If we were talking about the Goa'uld or Wraith we would steal them in a heart beat."

"The world leaders agreed with you, however they also agreed that we shouldn't at the moment tell the Colonials what the ZPMs are." explained Sam "We don't want them messing around with one and blowing up a world."

"I still say steal them," stated Vala "If you decide to I can make my skills to you for the right price."

"How many times do we have to tell you no." stated Daniel as Vala glared at him.

"I still find it hard to believe you dated her," stated Sam as she looked at Daniel

"For a month and it was only a month," countered Daniel as both of them glared at each other.

"I admit it was my first thought to but no, stealing items most of all religious items always leads to more trouble than the items are worth," confirmed Mitchell as the leader of SG1 leaned against the wall. "The real issue is what we do with this other information which could throw these colonials world into a tail spin."

"We can't hid the truth from them, that is for sure but of all things McKay has found something that we could use as an olive branch." explained Sam "He found an opening in their military network which could shut down whole ships with a push of a button. Telling them that may show that we mean no harm."

"Agreed and what of Jonas Quiin and his world wanting to join the Tau'ri?" inquired Teal'c "All the free Jaffa nations are surprised by that."

"So where our leaders." confirmed Sam "But if you look at it from their point of view it makes the logical sense. We have had close ties with them for a while, we have helped advanced their technology in return for resources and we have fought together in the past."

"It helps that their system is located nearby to two Jaffa powers, the only ones which have fought each other in the past and a Lucian Alliance faction is also nearby." added Mitchell. "We are allies and we would back them no matter what, but I don't know of a power right now in this galaxy who would take us on right now."

"True, but there are some issues." explained Sam "Most of them are small but the largest is that it throws off the schedule that the world leaders made for the development of Earth and Valhalla. Even so I don't see them turning down a chance to add a whole world of people into our government."

"Seems as if we are on the road to a world government," said Mitchell "I heard they are even talking about redoing all the ranks so that all member nations of the Tau'ri would have the same military ranking system."

**It was just before noon on Caprica and already the Quorum was full to their max, even the normally empty 100 seats in the section reserved for the Tau'ri had been opened up. **When word had gone out that those seats would be open most believed it would be filled by actual Tau'ri instead it was filled by the public citizens of Caprica. Apart from Doctor Woolsey, an aid and two armed guards there would no Tau'ri members in the Quorum Building even the Owl pilot, which had transported them the short distance, had fallen back to Colonial Station. The fact there was so few members of the Tau'ri in the building did not go unnoticed by the Colonials. This was explained by the Colonial News, as since word had gotten out about the belief that the Tau'ri had 20% none believers there had been a small group of protesters outside the police line around Colonial Station.

"So this has all been confirmed?" inquired Doctor Woolsey as he stood in the President's ready room. It was an oval room with multiple busts of the greats in colonial government history. It would be the same if there were a bust of George Washington or Ben Franklin in a room in the US Capital Building back on Earth.

"Yes, we got the reports from Earth this morning and McKay confirmed the other bit of news as well," explained the Aid as Woolsey nodded his head.

"Alright let's get going," ordered Woolsey as he moved out the door. Instantly he found himself surrounded by the ceremonial guard of the Quorum, they were dressed in the dress uniforms of the colonial military with the noticeable addition of swords hanging from their hips. They carried the traditional swords of Kobol, on Earth, they would be called Xiphos but they were not on Earth. In the lead was a priest and together they proceeded down the long tunnel which ran under the seats of the Quorum hall.

"Mr. President, members of the Quorum, members of the faith who speak with the voice of the Lords of Kobol and members of the military which protects us all. It is my great honor to introduce Doctor Richard Woolsey representative of the United States of America, the Tau'ri and the 13th tribe of Kobol Earth." yelled the official speakers as the entire room stood up all 1600 in the main level and another 500 in the seats located above and around the top level of the hall. Woolsey had asked that they would just call it the Tau'ri and not Earth, most of all he did not want them to call Earth the 13th tribe but the damage was already done.

He took a breath as he headed out into the centurial circle area located in the hall, from here he was expected to not only give a speech which would likely cause a major uproar in the Colonels but he was expected to answer the questions presented by each of the major worlds. It was a cross between a state of the union speech and a press conference. The ceremonial guards moved out to form a circle around the bottom area; also walking out dressed in their dress uniforms was two marines with the ceremonial swords hanging from their hips.

Woolsey moved up to the small podium which had been set up for him to use, a small Tau'ri banner had been draped over the front of the wood podium.

"Thank you President Adar and members of the Quorum for having me today on such short notice and being a fine host to us during our stay so far on your world." stated Woolsey with a warm smile. "First I would like to thank you and your people for being such fine hosts during our short stay. We the Tau'ri can learn much from your people. You have long standing liberties which are still considered controversial by some on Earth such as same gender couples and your system of government with so many people from different words living under a single government is a shining example which we hope to follow as the people of Earth spread out even more across space."

There was smiles around the room as Woolsey prepared to enter the heart of his speech.

"As much as you offer us, there are some things which you will have to adapt to if you the colonies of Kobol which to reach the same level as the people of the Tau'ri." explained Woolsey as he took a breath and prepared to take the plunge. "When the nations of Earth came together to form the Tau'ri there was much debating about how to mix so many cultures together into a single unified planet. In time we came to four core standards that would become the corner stones of the Tau'ri government. Three of them are similar to your rights, rights to peaceful assembly, right to petition or protest the government and the right of free speech."

Out in the audience most of the colonials where nodding their heads in agreement with smiles on their faces. A few wondered what the other corner stone was but they did not have to wait long.

"The last corner stone is the one which will cause the most strife between our people, here in the 12 colonies of Kobol you are almost totally unified by the shared faith in the lords of Kobol." said Woolsey. "You may disagree on small issues but you do not the long history of violence between large groups of people who believe differently. On Earth there was a point in our history when two religious groups waged war against each other for almost 200 hundred years. With this and other more recent conflicts in mind we made the corner stone of our government the right of every human to worship or not worship God as they please."

The colonials eyes widened at the idea of a two hundred year war between faiths and then the wording at the end were Woolsey said God not Lords of Kobol.

"You may have noticed that I said God not Lords of Kobol or Gods." confirmed Woolsey. "On Earth the Gods you call the Lords of Kobol we call the Greek Pantheon and was worshiped in a small part of Earth in the past, however that faith died out on Earth around two thousand years ago and even during the time it was worshipped there was countless other religions spread across the world."

The quorum hall exploded in a roar of anger as some of the more religious members of the Quorum showed their anger at those words. Others just glared at the Woolsey while still others tried to process the information that their cousins no longer believed in the Lords of Kobol.

"The people of Earth have multiple faiths and we welcome all who believe differently than us." Confirmed Woolsey as he took a breath "Now I know some of you are enraged and hurt by the idea that the people of Earth no longer believe in the Lords of Kobol, as a sign of goodwill we have something to offer. It is well known that both your military and ours have been scouting each other. While we were doing our work we discovered a gap in your computer system which could shut down whole ships."

The member of the Colonial Military acted as if they had been slapped across the face as Woolsey pulled a small computer disk from his vest.

"With your permission this disk shows the opening in your network so that you can address the issue as you see fit," explained Woolsey as he looked toward President Adar.

"Take it and report back here with its contents," ordered Adar with that Woolsey handed the disk to one of his guards who carried it over to a colonial guard who rushed out of the hall not sure what do with it.

"I know that you must have a lot of question but before I finish this statement I want to make one thing clear. If you the 12 colonies of Kobol do not want to have any contact with us that is your right and we will respect that." said Woolsey "We will settle on an official boarder and leave, the door to your worlds is yours to open or close as you see fit. Now I believe the first question goes to the colony Aerilon."

"Doctor Woolsey this is unbelievable you are saying that the people of Earth consider the Lords of Kobol a myth. If that is the case then how could we possibly be here?" inquired the Aerilon representative as people around the hall nodded their heads in agreement.

"Human life is not limited to just Earth, thousands of years ago a race we call the Goa'uld found ancient Earth and took populations from Earth and took them out across the galaxy to be their slaves." Explained Woolsey "Earth rebelled and overthrew them, thousands of years later we met them again and over the course of an Eight year long war we managed to defeat them. We have come across countless worlds with human life on them. We believe based off different sources that your people are descendants of some of those slaves taken from Earth."

The entire hall erupted in anger as the men and women of the Quorum got to their feet in anger, even members of the military who was suppose to remain stone face stood up and began to curse Woolsey. Woolsey stood still waiting for the storm to pass, it was clear that the Aerilon representative wanted to ask more but it was not her turn.

"Are you saying that Earth considers itself the birthplace of humanity?" inquired the Aquaria member in almost a scream.

"We have fossil evidence dating back millions of years that shows how humans evolved on Earth, on top of that we have massive stone structures built on Earth over 5,000 years old." explained Woolsey. "We also have the records of a race we call the Ancients who had their major colony on Earth which documents the early parts of our evolution. I would like to say that this new information does not take anything away from your people; the struggle your people must have endured to travel from Kobol to these worlds is worthy of remembrance by any standards. The only difference is that your ancestors were from Earth and went to Kobol before coming here."

"Do you know where Kobol is?" inquired Canceron's representative

"No we do not know." Admitted Woolsey as some of the colonials grinned , "However in the Asgard database there is a report of the battle between the Asgard and the Goa'uld system lord Zeus on the nearby planet, in the battle most of the Goa'uld soldiers and ships were destroyed. We believe that somehow your people made it off world and here, our best guess is that a large group of humans took control of a space ship or ships and made it here."

"You called Zeus one of these Goa'uld?" inquired President Adar who was speaking on behalf of his home colony of Caprica.

"When the Goa'uld took humans as slaves, they took the names of the gods worshiped by the humans they wanted to rule," explained Woolsey "Before we defeated them, we came into contact with a lot of the so called Gods from ancient Earth history."

"So you claim that to war with the Lords of Kobol, which you claim to be aliens who enslaved our ancestors. This smells of a great lie to me." said the Gemenon Representative in a tone of voice which was closer to a yell then normal speaking. "You have no proof that you're telling the true, in fact I believe this is an attempt to claim power over us."

"I am sorry but I didn't hear a question there." stated Woolsey "But if your asking what proof do we have, we have a lot. Historical records, fossil evidence and others but the question is would you believe it. Maybe our name will help you, we call ourselves the Tau'ri, that name was given to us by the human populations we met across the galaxy. It means those of the first world, Earth the birthplace of humanity in this galaxy."

The hall exploded in even more anger as suddenly the most senior members of the colony of Sagittaron stood up and turned their back on Woolsey and began to walk out of the meeting. Soon a mass exodus began as whole colonies stood up and left the hall in protest of the words that the Tau'ri was saying. Soon all the seats from Sagittaron was empty beside a single woman, the priest and priestess had left no one behind and the other colonies lost on average a quarter of their representative as they left in protest. Only the military remained there in their entirety and that was because they had standing orders to remain.

"This isn't good." stated President Adar as his mind began racing about how they could fix this issue, however his mind was drawing a blank. Religion played a part in the life of almost every colonial citizen and so this issue would plague every world the problem would be worst on Gemenon and Sagittaron which where the most religious of the colonies. Even on the least religious world of Libran this would be seen as a slap in the face by the average person in the street, there would be protests in the streets.

"Doctor Woolsey you claim that you on Earth are the birth place of Humanity and that you have proof, would you be willing to share this so called proof with us?" inquired the Libran member who was the former chef Public Defender in the colonies.

"Of course." said Woolsey with a smile believing this to be the first sign of hope, even it was a vein hope. "We will have it ready for you in a few hours."

"Doctor Woolsey if you really are from Earth and now I don't believe you are." started the Sagittaron member, the only one who remained. "You have said that you have waged war against the Lords of Kobol, have you killed the Lords of Kobol."

"We have never gone to war with the Goa'uld who were pretending to the Gods you call the Lords of Kobol." corrected Woolsey "Most of those where killed by the Asgard when they defeated Zeus, the others where killed by other rival Goa'uld System Lords. We did play major parts in defeating the other Goa'uld such as Ra, Anubis and Ba'al.

"Doctor Woolsey you have said multiple times that you have information from something called the Asgard core, what is that?" inquired the Scorpia member

"See there was once an alliance of four great races in the galaxy, these where the four most advanced races of their time and so far in recorded history." stated Woolsey. "The Asgard was a member of this alliance of 4 races and they lived until a few years ago. The process they devolved to live forever by downloading their minds into clone bodies' lead to them getting an incurable diseases. Deciding to end their race before the sickness could they gave their legacy to us. This Asgard core and the copies we have made sense then contained all of their recorded history including all of their technology. With this and others break through, we have changed our society drastically in the past few years. We have cured many dieses such as cancer, we have also brought back animals which where almost totally whipped out by human nature and fixing other damage we had done to our world."

"This Asgard core should belong to all the children of Lords of Kobol, as a member of this Quorum you need to hand it over right now." almost yelled the Tauron speaker.

"Sir, Earth nor any other human world in this galaxy is part of this Quorum; I speak to you as a visiting representative of another sovereign world and people." stated Woolsey as more anger filled the room. "The Asgard entrusted their legacy to us and no one else, we earned their friendship and while we are open to talking about trade we will not be joining this Quorum."

Finally the last of the colonies stood to take their turn.

"Doctor Woolsey this has been an event for sure and we now know more about you then we did at the start. I am afraid from our view it isn't that good and since you currently have seven warships overhead I have to ask if we ask you to leave will you do any harm to us." asked the Virgon member

"Of course we will not attacked unless attacked, in fact those ships will be leaving orbit in a couple of hours. The plan was to leave one of the smaller ships behind if we should need it to head back to our territory, however if you are worried about having one of our warships over this world we can come to a different arrangement." explained Woolsey as a Commander in Colonial intelligence walked into the room.

"Mr. President, members of the Quorum." said the commander "Sorry for the interruption but we have looked over the information given to us by Doctor Woolsey we have confirmed that it is true there is a whole in the network. We have sent orders to the fleet to deactivate all their networked computers until such time that the problem can be solves.

"I hope that this helps prove that we mean your people no harm and that while we are different in the ways we worship that we can come together as equals and come to arrangements in boarder and trade issues." explained Woolsey as his speech came to an end. Woolsey then walked off the stage along with the guards leaving the members of the Quorum to discuss what had just happened.

As Woolsey was walking out he was getting multiple glares from the colonials who were in the corridors.

"Doctor Woolsey." yelled a voice as Woolsey turned to see a woman standing there in a suit.

"Yes." Said Woolsey as the woman reached into her pocket, this caused the guards to get into the a defensive stance. Instead of a gun she pulled out a piece of paper.

"You have been severed, this is a notice that a representive of the Tau'ri must appear in front of the disciplinary hearing for Admiral Cain tomorrow morning." stated the lawyer as she handed the paper to Woolsey before heading away.

"And I thought this day I couldn't get worst." stated Woolsey as he read over the document instantly his lawyer mind found a big loophole in the summons, the question was would they use it or not.

**At that same moment at the very edge of colonial space a colonial Battlestar sat waiting for the return of the spy drones sent out by their military days earlier. **

"Shouldn't be much longer." said the XO to the Commander of the ship, before the Commander could say anything there was a beep as the DRADIS system picked up the drones as they appeared in flashes of light.

"Good, now get those things onboard so that we can figure out if we found anything," ordered the Commander as the order went out to the Raptor pilots to recover the drones and bring them back to the ship.

**Well I hope you liked this chapter, I think I wrote three different versions of this speech so it was hard to decide which one I wanted to present to you. In the end this one was the one I was most happy with. I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19 Reaction **

"If you are just joining us we have just learned some startling news about the Tau'ri." Said the Colonial News Anchor as she stood in one of the hallways of the Quorum building "We have learned that not only do the Tau'ri not believe in the Lords of Kobol but they believe that they are the senior branch of humanity. Joining us are Representative Alex Giorgos of Libran's 17th district and Irene Sakis who Representative Tauron's 1st district."

"Thank you for having us." said Alex as the short man stood beside the much taller woman.

"This is an important day for the colonies for sure." Said Irene as she touched the small pin on her suit jacket which showed the Tauron flag.

"Alright let's get right into the meat of this whole thing what are your thoughts about this claim by the Tau'ri." Inquired the News Anchor

"Personally without some hard evidence I don't see how we can take it very seriously." admitted Alex "My father was a lawyer and I was a judge and what matters is hard evidence, I am not talking about video or something else that could be faked but hard evidence."

"I would agree with that but even so what could they possible have that would be proof enough?" countered Irene "As for their faith I find it very troublesome and worry some that they have turned away from the Lords of Kobol, it raises a lot of issues that has to be addressed."

"Are you going to recommend a break in ties with the Tau'ri, there has been a lot of calls from the Gemenon and Sagittaron representative to do so," Inquired the Anchor, both of them shock their heads.

"No I feel that would be unwise, no matter what we are all children of the Lords of Kobol and while they have been led astray from the path of Lords it isn't a reason to break ties." countered Irena "We need to bring them back into the light of the Lords of Kobol."

"I agree you don't stop talking to your neighbor just because they worship Zeus as their primary God while you worship Athena." added Alex "Also the Tau'ri have shown that they have our best interest in mind."

"Maybe it was lost in the whole religion and other claims of the Tau'ri but they did show a great weakness in our Military network." said Irena "Something that would have put all our lives at risk. We need to thank them for that."

**President Richard Adar could not believe the issue he was facing, he had expected to deal with the religion after the Tau'ri made their speech but he was not expecting this**. Everything, his so-called expert predicted that their earth cousins had at most 20 percent of their population not believing in the Lords of Kobol had been very wrong. Instead not only did the Tau'ri believe that they were the senior branch of humanity they did not even believe in the Lords of Kobol. If that was not bad enough the Tau'ri claimed that the Lords of Kobol where aliens and they had killed them in a protected war.

"This isn't good." said Adar as he and some of the most senior members of the Quorum and his cabinet meet in one of the private meeting room in the Quorum building.

"No, it isn't." said his political advisor "This is inconceivable, how could the Tau'ri truly believe what they said."

"I hate to say it but what if they are right?" inquired Secretary of Education Laura Roslin. This caused a most of the people gathered in the room to look at her "They claim to have evidence and maybe it is the teacher in me but if they have the evidence to back up their claim we should look at it."

"We can't look at a lie." Cursed the senior Sagittaron representative "All we need to do is follow the holy scrolls, it is the words of the Lords of Kobol. We don't have to question it."

"We have to question it." stated Baltar as he and a blonde hair woman stood beside the Secretary of Science and Devolvement "I know it may be uncomfortable to some but what evidence do we have to counter them, we have fossil evidence of almost every animal in the colonies with a noticeable exception, humans. If Earth has the fossils and they have proof of aliens…"

"I am tired of your constant attack on the faith." snapped Priestess Gogola "If I remember correctly these Tau'ri also revived a hole in the military network you designed."

Before Baltar could come to his own defense, a knock at the door caused everyone to turn toward the solid oak door.

"Enter." Ordered President Adar as a Marine walked in.

"Sir, Doctor Woolsey is outside and wishes to speak to you and your cabinet." Explained the marine

"Do not listen to this liar." stated the Gemenon member

"Let him in." ordered Adar as Woolsey walked into the room and was instantly welcomed by glares.

"Thank you for seeing me," said Woolsey in a calm voice.

"You dare, you dare come in here and attack our values with your lies." stated Priestess Gogola as she pointed her finger at Woolsey and at the people of Earth. "You will rot in the fires of Tartarus for your sins unless you turn back toward the Lords of Kobol and renounce these lies."

"I nor any living soul can say what awaits us in the next life but from as far as I or my government know we didn't lie," explained Woolsey as he took a breath. "I nor my government wanted this to come out this way which is why we wanted to reveal this privately in the meeting you canceled."

"Still couldn't you have been more considerate with your statements claiming that the Lords of Kobol where alien enslavers is an attack on everyone in the colonies." stated the Libran member as Woolsey nodded his head.

"True, I admit it could have been softer but everything is linked so close together that there was no way to remove one from the other." Explained Woolsey "Also I said that the Goa'uld where impersonating your Lords of Kobol, for all I know your faith is corrects."

"But it isn't what you believe is it?" inquired Adar he had to know who he was dealing with.

"I am a Protestant, which means I believe in Jesus Christ the only son of God who died on the cross for the sins of humanity." Explained Woolsey as most of the people in the room glared at him. "However I most admit aside from Christmas and Easter I don't normally go to church, in the end that really doesn't matter."

"How can it not matter, if you don't believe in the Lords how can we trust you." Snapped the Gemenon member as others nodded their head.

"I believe that showing the weakness in your computer network would help show you that we are not lying, besides if we are going to be honest your world has no natural resources that we couldn't get in an inhabited system with no issue. Your worlds are away from the major powers and likely trading routes, in short besides becoming a trading partner you don't really have anything worth fighting a war over." explained Woolsey as he took a breath, he didn't bring up the ZPMs that the colonials had on purpose. "That being said if you want us to leave we will. You will not be the first world to want to be left alone and you will likely not be the last. All we want before we leave is to set a boarder so that we do not end up shooting at each other. With that done we will pull up and leave."

"We can't decide anything now." said Adar "This is a matter that needs to be brought up to not only our government but the normal people on the street."

"I understand and maybe it would be for best if we step out of the spotlight a bit." Explained Woolsey

"What do you mean?" inquired Adar

"Right now we have a small fleet over your world and we occupy one of your major buildings in the capital, we are in the face of your people." explained Woolsey "Our fleet leaves in a few hours to start an operation against the Wraith and with your promising we will leave Colonial Station for another smaller location. Maybe if we are not in the center of the city and in one of your most historic buildings it will help calm everyone down. Hopefully it will become our embassy here if not it will give you back control of colonial station."

"Where?" inquired the political advisor.

"There is an old military base being turned private spaceport called Greystone field." Explained Woolsey as the Political advisor nodded his head, he had actually been to that area. The military base had been sold three years ago to a developer after being abounded for 25 years. There was still a lot of construction going on and few people living there at the moment. "The old officer's house would be perfect for us and the spaceport would allow us to bring something in."

"What in?" inquired the Secretary of Defense

"Since we want to send all our warships away we want to bring in a private transport in." explained Woolsey "All we want would be the hanger behind the officer building."

"We will think about it," said Adar as Woolsey nodded his head and turned to leave but before he could the sectary of defense stopped him.

"Sorry Doctor Woolsey but you said your fleet is leaving correct?" inquired the Secretary of Defense.

"Correct." confirmed Woolsey "What of it."

"We had hoped to trade military advisors." explained the Secretary "That way we can gain a better understanding of each other."

"I will have to check with Earth but I foresee no real issue, but those ships will be leaving for a rather long deployment into a warzone so any advisor you send would be out of contact for a couple of weeks." Explained Woolsey "If you want to send an advisor make sure he or she is ready within five hours."

"Very well." confirmed the Secretary of Defense as Woolsey turned and left.

"Why would we want to send an advisor with them?" inquired the Sagittarion member.

"We need to find out more and this is the best way to get that information," explained the Secretary of Defense.

"Yes, we need to learn more," confirmed Adar

As Woolsey walked out of the building a line of colonial police formed around him to protect him and the other Tau'ri from the mob of news reporters, quorum members and even normal people who were yelling a mix of questions and insults at them. They walked out of the building down the stairs passed by even more people as they neared the Owl transport that had flown the short distance between Colonial station and the Quorum building. The Owl was surrounded by more police and even more citizens. There was cursing and spitting by some as the Tau'ri walked up the ramp into the Owl. Moments later the Owl was airborne and flying over the crowd.

"So how bad?" inquired Woolsey to the pilot.

"Well we are now surrounded by protesters but I think over half of them are actually the different news agencies. The colonial police are holding them back." Explained the pilot as Woolsey wished the owl had windows in the side which would allow him to see the massive crowds which surrounded colonial station. Luckily, the mall located in colonial station remained closed because of the terrorist attack and so there was an additional line of defense between the Tau'ri and colonial protestors.

**On the far side of Colonial Space sat the massive spaceship which was the homeworld of the Cylons.** In truth the Cylons did actually have a few worlds of their own which they used as factory worlds to build their ships, weapons and of course themselves. Even so this was the Cylon homeworld.

"Damn them." cursed the one, they have moved in close to the boarder to get live feed from Caprica of the speech. "Those Tau'ri just destroyed our secret weapon against the humans, without our program shutting down their defenses there was almost no hope of beating the colonials on their own."

"Maybe it is for the best," countered the six as she played with her glass of water, even though they were machines and could download their minds into another matching body upon death did not mean they did not have to eat and drink. "If we were to launch an attack now, the Tau'ri would enter the war and we would lose within days if not hours. Our only trump card against the colonials was the virus and now we lost it."

"Then what do you recommend?" inquired the five

"It is time that we make official contact with the Tau'ri maybe if we present ourselves as the more peaceful option to the Tau'ri we could gain their trust more than the Colonials." Offered an eight

"What about causing a war between the Tau'ri and the Colonials?" inquired the One dismayed by the idea.

"That will likely come without us doing anything." countered the Three "The colonial's will learn within the next couple of hours that Tau'ri Valhalla is in fact Kobol, then there is all the religious issues that arise from none believers of the Lords of Kobol claiming Kobol as their own. That could cause a war all on its own."

"Then there is the fact that the Tau'ri believe they are the senior branch of humanity." added the five

"Yes, war is coming and I for one would rather be on the winning side of any war," stated the four "The Tau'ri have no reason to hate us and we have no reason to hate them."

"They are humans." Countered the one

"Humans that never enslaved us." Added the six "And if they do figure out that we put that weakness in the colonials network it can be explained as a countermeasure in case the Colonials attacked us."

"I believe we should make contact with the Tau'ri." said the two as the One looked at the other Cylon models with a mixture of surprise an anger, finally even he gave in.

"Alright but we should sent one of those old Golden Centurions, we do not reveal our human forms." advised the One as the other models nodded their heads in agreement. Within moments, two heavy raiders took off from the Colony with an escort of four Raiders. Since the Colony was on the far side of colonial space the Raiders and Heavy Raiders would have to go around colonial space, their mission to make official contact with the Tau'ri near Valhalla.

**Back on Caprica Colonel Jack O'Neill was currently dressed in full combat gear minus the helmet, which was hanging on his belt**. He held his rifle in his arms as he looked down at the massive crowd of colonial citizens gathered below in the streets which surrounded Colonial Station. They were screaming and cursing out the Tau'ri soldiers on the roof top and a few even attempted to throw items at them, even though they where far out of range of the human arm. Even so the protesters for the most part where peaceful, and there seemed to be at least one news man or woman for every three protestors.

"Seen any good signs?" inquired a French solider to a British one within earshot of Jack.

"Most of them are basically telling us to go to hell." Stated the British "The one telling us we are the false Earth is kind of funny."

"None of this is funny," countered Jack as a bottle full of something landed a couple floors below him.

"Sir, what do you think will happen?" inquired the British solider as the colonial police moved in and arrested the man who throw the bottle

"Don't really know." admitted Jack, there was a lot of rage out in the crowd but while the tone was rage aside from a few spots it was peaceful. "How would people on Earth react if someone tried to tell us Jesus was actually an alien."

"Haven't you seen Ancient Aliens on the History Channel sir?" inquired a nearby American marine with a slight laugh. "They have been saying stuff things like that for years."

"And I am old enough to remember when the History Channel actually showed history." countered Jack before turning back to the matter at hand. That is when he saw them, a small group of man and women maybe about thirty people surrounded by two lines of colonial police. The police where facing out protecting these protestors from the others. These protestors where holding up signs of support for the Tau'ri and calling for talk between the two sides.

"Glade to see that we aren't hated totally." said the French solider

Over the course of the next few hours, the protest would grow as more and more people showed up. In time the crowd became almost totally split between half in support of more talks with the Tau'ri and the others screaming bloody murder at them. All this was covered live on TV across every single world with around the clock coverage with so-called experts saying the same thing over and over again just using different words. The media got even more focus as the multiple owl transports took off from the roof of Colonial Station, this led to the belief that the Tau'ri where pulling out when in fact General Shepard and some of the other staff headed back up to the fleet before starting their journey to Pegasus Galaxy. The other owls where heading toward the small spaceport and the much smaller building which would serve as a temporary embassy.

Finally the last two Owls sat on the rooftop as the final members of the Tau'ri forces in the building gathered on the roof.

"Good luck with the Wraith." said Jack as he shook hands with his friend General Shepard.

"Wish you were coming with me, both of you." said Shepard as he looked at Jack and Doctor Woolsey.

"Well my place is here for the moment." explained Woolsey "Besides you will have to deal with the Colonials yourself for a little bit, the governments of Earth have agreed to allow a group of five of them to come with you."

"I still don't like that it may give them too much information about our capabilities." Countered Jack

"We hope so, they will learn what we are capable of and maybe the seeing actual aliens will help convince them of the truth." explained Woolsey

"Well there is only six of them so it shouldn't be an issue." explained Sheppard as he looked at his watch. "We better get going if we are going to make the meet up with the rest of the fleet at Kua Fu base."

"Good luck." said O'Neill

"I could say the same to the both of you." said Shepard as they all headed toward their Owls, then at the same time the owls lifted off colonial Station each heading their own way.

**Above their heads a single Colonial Viper space fighters flanked a single Raptor as it neared the USS Missouri.** The Missouri class battleship was about the size of a colonial battlestar however, it lacked the massive flight pods on either side. Instead, it had a smaller hanger in the back third of the ship.

"Missouri flight command this is Apollo requesting permission to land." Requested Captain Lee Adama who had only been informed 90 minutes earlier that he would be one of the six people sent to observe the Tau'ri. As part of his mission he had received the shortest mission briefing, he had ever gotten, he was to study the military of the Tau'ri and their culture. Report back when they returned which wouldn't be for a month at the earliest.

"Apollo you are clear for landing," said a voice as these massive doors opened up in front of him. He slowed his Viper's speed down as he and the Raptor moved into the ship. There seamed to be a moment when his engines struggled to push forward, it passed within moments and then at that moment his systems began to read atmosphere and full gravity. While the Raptor came in for a landing on the strange deck, his raptor rolled down the line passing by those black fighters the Tau'ri used. He also saw Owls and other crafts sitting on different platforms above the side of the runway. He powered down his Viper as a Tau'ri ground crew walked up to him and tapped on the side of the Viper. Lee opened his cockpit only to see that that the Tau'ri had pulled up a ladder of some kind to help him out.

"Welcome to the Missouri." said the crewmember

"Some ship you have here." said Lee as he looked around, the ship was clearly brand new there was no marks on the wall where equipment bumped up against it.

"Well it is so new; you can still smell the paint," laughed the crew member as he helped Lee out of his Viper as others moved in to take it to its position in the hanger. Lee turned and got his first look at the other members of his mission. They stepped off a Raptor with the Battlestar Galactica's seal painted on the haul. Standing beside it was a man and a woman in matching flight gear as his own, the man was tall with a short military cut while the woman was shorter with brown hair.

He moved across the deck as both of them snapped to attention.

"At ease." ordered Lee "Who are you two."

"Lieutenant Karl Agathon and Lieutenant Sharon Valerii of the Battlestar Galactica." Said he man as Lee nodded his head.

"Captain Lee Adama." Said Lee as both Raptor pilots looked at each other "Yes, Commander Adama is my father."

"Sir, he is an Admiral now." corrected Sharon.

"So who else did you bring?" inquired Lee as three more figures moved out from the other side of the Raptor. Lee had seen two of them before on TV, the first man was dressed in a business suit and had his pair of designer sunglasses in his hand. He was scanning the area with the mind of a scientist that he was, standing before him was Gaius Baltar maybe the smartest man in the colonies. Beside him was the only person he did not know, she was a tall woman with looks that caused most the nearby Tau'ri to look at her. The last was a younger woman dressed in the robes of a priestess, the seal attached to a pin above her heart showed that she was in the same order as the President's Spiritual advisor, but he had seen her standing behind Priestess Gogola on the news.

"Welcome to the Missouri." said a woman as she walked up to the group. "My name is Teyla Emmagan Sheppard and I am sorry that my husband couldn't be here to great you personally, he is just landing and has a conference call with our leaders."

"That is fine." explained Lee as he felt the whole ship move under him. Then he saw that all the Tau'ri where looking toward the far end of the hanger. Lee turned to see the edge of Caprica disappear from view, replaced by nothing by stars and a battlestar in the distance. For a moment he was confused then a portal opened up in front of the ship, before he could even move the ship shot forward and entered something that looked to be a tunnel of blue energy.

"Our FTL is very different than yours," said Teyla "Allow me to show you to your rooms."

Back on Caprica, O'Neill's owl flew west away from the city center and toward the country side, they flew over neighbors and close to the Caprica City Space port where countless shuttles took off daily heading toward different parts of the colonies. Finally, after ten minutes in the air they reached their destination, it looked like an upper class neighbor on earth full of half finish and finished Mcmanisions. There was a large park sitting before the base of a small hill and sitting on top of that hill was likely the oldest building in the area. It looked like a southern plantation house with duel total wrapped around balconies with multiple columns.

"That's the old general's house," said the pilot as he brought the Owl around to show that along the backside of the hill was an airbase. It was clearly made by the military judging by the reinforced hangers and empty antiaircraft placements but it had become a civilian spaceport. There were actually a few colonial civilians watching the owls come in to land on the concrete pads located behind the old General house.

"Well this is smaller for sure." Said Jack that is when he saw it coming in for a landing. The long narrow body with moveable swept wings of the Condor bomber. For a moment he wondered why would a Condor Bomber be needed here then he saw the small windows along the body of the bomber. That meant it was a modified Condor made to transport small groups of people short distances such as from Valhalla to Caprica.

As the Owl landed, the Condor came to a stop and the door opened. At once a group of man walked off the craft carrying their packs over their shoulders and their weapons hanging from their hips. Jack didn't need to be told who they where it wasn't clear enough by their uniforms and the patches on them, the knife hanging from their belts told who they were.

"If a man says he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying or is a Gurkha." Quoted Jack as he remembered from school what an Indian Army Chief of Staff said about the legendary Nepal's military force, which was now arriving on Caprica to help guard the mission of the Tau'ri. Jack looked away from the forty men who were getting off the condor and looked over his shoulder; there hanging from the flagpole where the colonial colors once flew when that had been part of the base was the flag of the Tau'ri. It would not take long for the media to find out where they had gone.

**Well I hope you like this chapter, next week I am going on a vacation so don't expect another chapter next week. Until next time please keep reading and reviewing. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	20. Chapter 20

**IMPORTANT NOTE**

I have had multiple reviews and PM about why my grammar is not perfect so much that some wonder if I even speak English and why I do not use a BETA. So I would like to take a moment to explain. First, when I was younger I was found to have a problem with tracking in my eyes. My eyes would read the first line then skip down five or six lines in a paragraph. This makes learning very hard, so hard my teachers thought I was mentally disabled. Luckily, it was found and I got help but when I came back my teachers basically said screw you and learn it on your own, so I had to teach grammar to myself. Add on to that I have a mild case of Dyslexia. Well I showed them and I not only graduated from college but I am now a network administrator for the company I work for. I hope this story explains why my grammar and spelling is far from perfect. In fact fanfiction has helped with my writing and grammar if you want to see bad grammar look at my first couple of stories.

Now as for why with all these problems do I not use a BETA well the answer is that I have had BETAs in the past almost 10 of them and all of them have screwed me in one way or another. My first one who is my best friend edited so much of my story out because as he said "It was all fluff." Others simply stopped editing my work or made we wait months for a chapter and changed nothing in it. I even had one take my story as his own and posting it on his profile. So like when a kid gets bitten by one dog may makes the kid afraid of Dogs, I don't trust BETAs anymore maybe I could but it would take a lot for me to do so.

Sorry for going on this speech but I was stick of dealing with message after message about this from people. Now enjoy this chapter. Wilkins75

**Chapter 20 Moving Forward**

On Earth a meeting was taking place between the leadership of the big eight powers on Earth, since the President of the United States held the office of President of the council of eight this time the meeting was taking place in the oval office in Washington DC.

"Something needs to be done, that is for sure," said the Chinese Premier as he drank some of his tea.

"Agreed we can't let this to keep going on for much longer, they are a threat to peace," confirmed the President of the United States "We need to take care of this issue sooner rather than later."

"Are there any options beside war?" inquired the British Cabinet member who was severing in the position normally held by the PM, who was currently off world on Gaia.

"Not at the moment." confirmed the Indian President "This mad man has held on for so long and now he is threating to launch nukes unless we hand over the Stargate to him."

"Well that cannot be allowed to happen," confirmed the Russian President as the others nodded their heads in agreement. "North Korea must be dealt with, with force if needed."

"The main issue that when we formed the Tau'ri we agreed that no military force could be used on Earth. The only way would be if we got the permission of all the nations here plus all the other members of the Tau'ri government," countered the French President "We now have 46 member nations will they go along with a military action against North Korea?"

"Maybe, but in the mean time I recommend that we move forces toward the boarders of North Korea and place four ships around it," offered the Russian President "Those ships will be able to react if North Korea does anything stupid."

"Agreed," confirmed the American President "The next issue is, what about Langara wanting to join our government?"

"The main issue is how we split their vote up in the house," stated the German Chancellor everyone knew that besides the power that the big eight had on the higher council the house had votes based on population, sort of like the US House of Representatives.

"We should treat them the same as we would if another nation on Earth entered." Offered the Brazilian President as the Chinese Premier shook his head, they all knew that China and India had the most votes in the lower house since they had the greater population. The addition of Langara would lower their control in the house. "It is what we are doing with Vahalla."

"I still worried about adding them into the Tau'ri when we are not unified yet on our own world." Explained the British Minister

"But by our own rules no nation or world can even be considered for membership unless they have a stable government for a decade." countered the American President "Are we willing to make Langara wait because of all the nations who don't meet that requirement on our own world?"

"No we can't make them wait, maybe we should set requirements for worlds membership?" offered the French President "Such as a certain percentage of the total population voting for it, maybe two thirds?"

"I like it." confirmed the Brazilian President

"Alright let's move on to the issues with these 12 tribes of Kobol," offered the President of the United States

"Yes, they are becoming a pain in our side. I am starting to wonder if it is even worth the trouble of dealing with them," offered the Chinese's Premier "Maybe it would be better to leave them to themselves."

"They are troublesome but they have 12 ZPMs." countered the Russian President "Are we sure we can't take the ZPM's and replace them with copies? They wouldn't notice would they?"

"Even if we would consider doing that which is not something we will do. The ZPMs are kept in temples spread out across their worlds and guarded around the clock," explained the American President, the intelligence agencies had looked at the options to steal the ZPMs or at the very least find out how charged they are. "It would as if someone wanted to steal a body from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, even harder since at least in Arlington the bodies are kept inside the tomb while the ZPMs are kept in glass or open air displays and watched all the time."

"Damn." cursed the Chinese as he moved to light a smoke only to get a glare from western nation leaders which forced him to put it away. "We could do a lot with those ZPMs."

"How did they even get those ZPMs?" inquired the British Minister

"From the Asgard core it appears that the Goa'uld Zeus was experimenting with Ancient Technology including ZPMs." explained the Russian President "The Asgard found out and decided to remove the threat to them. From the reports Zeus had 13 ZPMs but during the battle one of them ruptured and it pretty much caused the same effects as a super volcano on the planet we now call Valhalla."

"We were lucky that the ZPM didn't blow up the planet or the whole star system." added the American President "The Asgard assumed that the world was dead and the ZMPS gone, so they took the gate to make sure no one could return to the planet and left. We think that the people of the Colonies are descended from the slaves that Zeus had on world."

"So these slaves somehow got ahold of the remaining 12 ZMPs and made it off world somehow during the battle between the Asgard and the Goa'uld?" inquired the Indian President as the American nodded his head "So is Valhalla actually Kobol?"

"Maybe to the Colonials but the Goa'uld called it something else…I forget what it was called but as for what Kobol is it is up in the air." explained the American President "Maybe it was a leader who lead them off world and through the centuries they renamed the planet Kobol. Still we should reinforce our forces on Valhalla and we shouldn't tell these Colonials where Valhalla is."

There was heads nodding all around the room as they moved on to the next issue on the table, which was the combat mission on the Pegasus front.

**At that same time on Caprica another meeting was taking place in the largest of the hangers on the old Greystone spaceport. **The hanger was closed so that any of the Colonials watching from the outside could not see what was going on. Inside the hanger where the faded remains of a Colonial military flags had been taken down and replaced with the flag of the Tau'ri plus the big 8 with the addition of Nepal's since the Gurkhas where from there.

The hanger was packed with a massive Condor bomber which had been modified into a transport, the rest of the hanger was filled up with two Owl transports and a Jumper. The Jumper was the secret weapon they had, so it had to be cloaked whenever the hanger was opened. There was another Owl transport which was parked on the Pyramid court behind the officer's house. Standing in the hanger where the Gurkhas and multiple national Special Forces secrecy force plus the small staff, which had been left behind when the task force had pulled out.

"Alright listen up," yelled Jack O'Neill as all eyes turned toward him "I will make this short because I am sure we all don't want to stand around all day."

"First for the new people welcome to Caprica and the 12 colonies of Kobol." started O'Neill "I am sure you all have read the briefing, if not do so before you interact with the Colonial people. Right now we are in a sort of standoff between our people, we have told them what we know about their history and they are still figuring it out for themselves. What happens rather depends on what they decide, either we will be setting up a full embassy here or we will be packing up and leaving. You all have your tasks from standing posts to doing research into the colonies, now please go do them."

As the Tau'ri began to spread out to their posts, a man dressed in a Gurkha uniform with his knife hanging from his belt moved toward O'Neill. He was a very short man but it was clear that while small he is not someone to mess with.

"Colonel O'Neill, I am Major Labh and these men are under my command," said the Gurkha to the American Special Force's Colonel

"I understand Major Labh and I understand you Gerkhas have a special way of operating and you don't like having me over you." said Jack "Personally I would rather not be here, my children are back on Valhalla and I would rather be there, my team was trained for rapid reaction not standing post."

"And you think my team wants to be here?" inquired Major Labh "I have a son back in Nepal so do most of my man so don't give us the whole sob story about wanting to be with your family."

"I am sorry." apologized Jack "But both of us know that the only way that

"So neither of us want to be here and Earth will not recall us until this place becomes peaceful, there is no reason for two highly trained special forces teams have to be stationed here?" inquired Jack before he answered his own question. "The reason why we are here is to show off to the locals, once this whole thing calms down then regular soldiers can take over and we can all go home."

"So what is the defense state here?" inquired Major Labh

"We have shield generators up around the main building and this hanger," reported O'Neill "Sniper positions are still being set up and the colonials have allowed us to set defensive position just outside the hanger for landing Owls. The gun racks are being set up in the armory and our defensive plans for a breach are still being set up."

"Alright, then we have some work to do." stated Major Labh "A lot and not a lot of time to get it all set up."

**It was rather late in the day for Captain Lee Adama, in fact it almost midnight on Tauron but he had yet to have dinner. **In truth, he did not even know where he was in relation to Tauron or any of the other colonies. He was onboard the Tau'ri battleship the Missouri on its way to an unknown location. He was amazed at how different and yet how similar the ship was to a battlestar. The corridors where slightly smaller then the ones on a battlestar but the walls seemed to have touch screen computers built into them. On his way to the set of rooms set aside for them they had to move out of the way as a group of sixteen soldiers came running by. The bedrooms where large but not over the top similar to the average hotel room, the only issue was that two bedrooms shared a joint bathroom which included a shower. On battlestars only the Commander and XO had their own private bathroom so it was not that big of an issue.

Lee and the other members of the delegation was lead onto the bridge to see that it was very different then the CIC on a battlestar. There was a command chair with rows of other seated people in front of it in lowered positions. Behind the chair was a large table which was showing holographic displays at the moment and along the walls where more computers. Man and women moved back and forth from the different computers with the front of the room being a giant window of some kind, which showed the strange blue tunnel of their FTL.

Standing by the command chair was General Shepard who was looking down at one of those hand held computers that the Tau'ri seemed unable to live without.

"Welcome to the Missouri sorry that it took so long for us to meet, message from Earth came in." apologized General Shepard

"That is fine General, I am Captain Lee Adama and these are Lieutenants Karl Agathon and Sharon Valerii." said Lee as he introduced the two other military members of the delegation.

"Hello General I am Doctor Gaius Baltar and this is assistant Doctor Jenny Oldstone." said Baltar as the tall blonde woman nodded her head.

"And I am Priestess Adrianna of the holy order of Athena." stated the priestess in her long robes, she was the only one to refuse to take the General's hand.

"Well once again welcome to the Missouri, now I hope you understand that this will be a rather long deployment but we hope to get you back to the colonies in about a month." explained Shepard. "While onboard there are some rules. No accessing the computer system for military maters and you are not allowed to enter level 1 areas such as the bridge without an escort."

"We understand that totally sir." explained Lee "But if I may inquire where are we going? Is it Earth?"

"No, we are actually going in the opposite direction of Earth," explained Shepard as he looked at his watch. "Should be any moment now."

Therefore, it was as the ships came out of hyperspace the tunnel of energy disappeared and was replaced with normal space. What the colonials say through the window both confused and amazed them, in front of them was a small barn looking brown gray world. It was so small it may have been considered a moon when compared the massive gas giant Zeus back in the Colonies. However around it were dozens of ships, all of them Tau'ri. While most appeared to be either the smaller ships which had formed the backbone of the task force three massive ships dominated the scene. Two of them where twins to the Missouri and the last one was very similar only with longer hangers.

"Sir, all ships are here and Kua Fu base in on the line," reported an operator as the General nodded. Almost at once, a holographic image of a man dressed in a Chinese uniform appeared before them.

"General Shepard welcome back to Kua Fu." said the Chinese Officer as both of them saluted each other.

"Thanks for having us." said General Shepard "Are all ships ready?"

"Yes, sir and Midway we be awaiting your arrival." confirmed the Chinese officer "I have to inform you that one of our transmitter was damaged during a dust storm and is due for repairs so we may lose contact with you for a few hours as your making the crossing."

"Understood, wish we could host you for dinner but the war is calling. Shepard out," said Shepard as the Chinese officer nodded his head before disappearing.

"Order all ships to form up into task forces and begin the journey we will meet up at Midway in six days." ordered Shepard, with that the Missouri turned away from the planet as the other ships followed suit forming up into different groups. It was discovered when the Tau'ri first began to send multiple ships over to Pegasus and back in groups that there was always some drifting which happened. So they had to spread their forces out to avoid anyone hitting another Tau'ri ship. Then the hyperspace window opened and the ships entered hyperspace.

"So where are we going? what is Midway?" inquired Sharon

"Midway is the code phase for the midway space station which sits in the void between the Milkway and Pegasus Galaxy." explained Shepard as if it was nothing even as the colonials eyes widened. "It along with Kau Fu base and a matching one in Pegasus allows for communication between Earth and our forces in that galaxy."

"Wait we are going to another Galaxy?" inquired Baltar as Shepard smiled.

"Yes, in fact once we get there we have to go to the far end of the Pegasus galaxy. You will actually be closer to the Andromeda galaxy then what we call the Milky Way galaxy where Earth and your colonies are located." Explained Shepard as the Colonials blinked at the idea that they were going to another galaxy, "It will take six days to reach midway and another five to reach Pegasus, so who wants to have some dinner?"

As the colonials headed off with General Shepard, a young officer tapped his computer screen before flipping a switch, which turned on a yellow light over his station. Quickly the XO of the ship walked over. The Captain and retaken his command chair and assumed control of the ship now that the General was gone.

"What is it?" inquired the XO

"Sir, take a look at these scans." said the young officer as the XO looked at the screen, it showed an outline of the ship with multiple dots moving around it. They were all blue showing the normal vital signs for human life but four of them where not blue instead they were flashing between blue and white.

"What does that mean?" inquired the XO

"Normally when it flashes like that means a person isn't fully human," explained the young officer "Mrs. Shepard and her son since they have some Wraith DNA flash like that."

"I see…wait that explains two of them what of the other two?" inquired the XO "And who do these flashes belong to?"

"Two of the colonials are not fully human." Reported the young officer as the XO eyes widened "The question is which two?"

"You don't know?" inquired the XO surprised at the news.

"The scanners have a field about five feet and they are normally so close to each other we can't tell." defended the officer "Maybe once they split up we can figure out which ones are not human and better yet what they are?"

"Any ideas?" inquired the XO

"Not sure, maybe the Colonials have some alien DNA mixed in or something else" Started the officer only to stop "Don't the Colonials have a history with some robot race? Could they be like the Replicators?"

"Maybe, alright we need to figure this out fast," said the XO "And we have to make sure that the ship and the general is safe, contact the general and inform him. We have to be careful this could be nothing more than the colonials have some DNA from another alien race."

"Understood sir." confirmed the officer

**The sun was rising over Caprica City as President Adar looked down at his morning briefing papers; he was scheduled to have a whole day in the office covering some of the backlog of paperwork which had built up since the arrival of the Tau'ri. **While it was true when compared to the arrival of the Tau'ri the debate over the education budget did not seem important he still had to deal with it. Of course, he still had to deal with the Tau'ri. They had moved to their new location and word had gotten out within hours where they had gone, protestors had shown up of course but the distance outside the city kept the size down. The colonies seemed to be divided almost between those screaming bloody murder about the Tau'ri and those who wanted to talk it out with their cousins.

"What is this briefing from the Military about?" inquired Adar to his main political advisor

"The drones have returned and the military is looking over the photos and want to brief you." explained the advisor as Adar remembered before looking down at his paperwork.

"And when does Woolsey appear before the Quorum." inquired Adar, this would be a make or break moment, the Tau'ri would have to really impress the normal civilians with their openness. If they dodged questions than it would provide ammo for those calling for a break in talks. He wanted to slap the lawyers for Admiral Cain when he learned about the summons it was like playing with fire it could cause even more damage to their relations.

"His craft is landing now," said the aid as he pointed toward a television in the corner of the room. Adar raised his head and looked at the screen; it showed one of those Owl transports landing behind the Quorum building.

**Then before the cameras, the back ramp lowered and a man stepped off the ramp, it was not Woosley but instead a man dressed in a blue uniform. **He walked off the transport and almost instantly, the transport took off as the man moved into the Quorum building hallways. There was cameras in the hallways and they broadcasted the man as he walked across the marble floor before moving into the large meeting room where the judges where waiting.

Inside the room was set up like any normal courtroom in the colonies, there were three judges and three tables, one for the prosecutor, the defenses and one for the witness. In this case the witness table was right in front of the judges with the other tables on either side. Behind the tables where rows of seats, normally they wouldn't be full but today it was standing room only as the man walked into the room.

All heads turned toward him as he moved past the defense table where Admiral Cain sat in her full dress uniform and past the lawyer for the military, which was holding this inquest into the attacks. The man moved forward and took his seat before the judges, taking off his hat and sunglasses as he did so.

"Good morning." said the man "My name is Colonel Jonathan O'Neill Jr. of the United States of America Air Force and I understand you have some questions."

"Colonel O'Neill, sorry but we were expecting Doctor Woolsey," said one of the judges as the others looked around.

"I am sorry for the confusion but the summons we got said a "representative" of the Tau'ri and Doctor Woolsey sent me since I know more about the military side of the matters. Since we all in the military I think we all can agree that most politicians generally don't know much about what actually happens in the military." explained O'Neill as one of the judges smiled and another nodded his head in agreement. "If you wish we can reschedule or we can proceeded with this hearing and I can answer as many questions as I can."

The judges shared a glance before nodding their heads.

"Colonel O'Neill we have no issues processing with you standing for the Tau'ri however while in this room you will follow the rules of this hearing." explained the Judge. Before Jack could say anything he turning to the lawyer for Admiral Cain, however to everyone's amazement it was Admiral Cain herself who stood up and moved to stand between Colonel O'Neill and the judges.

"Colonel Jonathan O'Neill?" inquired Admiral Cain

"Please Jack is what I normally go by." corrected Jack

"Very well Colonel Jack O'Neill." restarted Admiral Cain with distain in her voice. "Tell me why was Earth setting up a station there?"

"We were setting up an early warning station for our colony," explained O'Neill "I am sure your military has stations to monitor your boarders."

"So you claim that area as your boarders but yet you never even checked with us." said Cain "Would your forces have moved to claim our worlds for yourself?"

"If your worlds were unpopulated maybe," admitted Jack as he got some looks from the colonials. "But there are enough uninhabited worlds in this galaxy alone that we could take without a fight."

"So you admit that you're extending your power and colonizing different worlds?" inquired Admiral Cain "And that you would have taken our worlds from us if you could."

"Maybe your hearing what you want to hear." stated Jack "I said if your worlds were unpopulated and there was no civilization here that we may colonize these worlds but your civilization is here and as such we have no interest in taking your worlds."

"Tell me Colonial O'Neill what is the level of interest back on Earth about what happens here?" inquired Admiral Cain

"I don't see how that is related to the events that led up to our forces trading fire," said Colonel O'Neill

"I say it does and since I am a higher ranking officer call me Ma'am or Admiral Cain," ordered Cain

"I am a member of the US military and the Tau'ri I am not in your military organization, I don't have to do anything." countered O'Neill "I could sit here and watch paint dry and there is nothing you could do about it."

"Admiral Cain, this is uncommon ground Colonel O'Neill is an officer in another military…" started one of the judges.

"I am sorry to interrupt Sir, but he isn't." corrected Admiral Cain as everyone blinked at the statement. "Look at our founding documents and the Articles of Colonization, Earth is listed as a member of the tribes of Kobol and for the first 50 years of our government whenever there is a law put before the Quorum a vote is taken for Earth."

"A no vote if I remember correctly." inquired one of the judges

"Correctly which is why getting the ¾ majority needed to override a Presidential Veto was so hard to get." confirmed Admiral Cain "Since Earth was listed as a member colony, I hereby put before this court that Earth is still a member of the 12 colonies of Kobol and subject to our laws."

"What?" inquired Jack "That makes no sense, if someone signs my name on a legal contract without my permission or knowledge I don't have to honor the terms of that agreement."

"But as it said in the founding documents the Lords of Kobol are signing for the colonies so Gaia herself signed for Earth and her people." countered Cain "So it is legal in the eyes of the Lords of Kobol and who are we to question them? I hereby post to you all that Earth is already a member of our government and by failing to give all the information to this hearing and this government they are in a state of rebellion and I was defending the colonies from them."

"Did I enter crazy town when I wasn't looking, where in this universe does that make any sense?" inquired Jack "A man form one of your religious orders stood for god which the people of Earth don't believe in signed for us in one of your founding documents and we are supposed to follow them?"

"A woman, Gaia is a woman so a priestess signed for your world," corrected Cain Before slamming her fist in front of Jack "So answer the question Colonel O'Neill."

"No, and this conference is over." stated O'Neill as he stood up grabbing his hat and sunglasses. He turned and headed toward the door only to have the voice of one of the judge's boom over crowd.

"Colonel O'Neill stops where you are, you have not been dismissed from this hearing, you must answer the questions." said the Judge, Jack did not stop instead he kept moving and just as he put his hand on the door. "Guards place Colonel O'Neill under arrest until he answers the questions."

"Shit." cursed Jack as the colonial marines which had been standing in a ceremonial role moved forward and grabbed O'Neill and turned him around.

"Colonel O'Neill, answer the questions and we can move on from this. What harm comes from answering our questions." offered a different judge in a reasonable tone, but Jack was not in the mod for it.

"Yes, Colonel O'Neill submits to the rules of the 12 colonies of Kobol." said Admiral Cain with a cocky grin.

"Lady, I have been threatened by things far more intimidating then you." explained Jack with his own grin.

"So you mock this court, the people of the 12 colonies of Kobol and the Lords of Kobol," snapped Cain playing it up to the judges and the cameras.

"Since I have killed people who have claimed to be gods multiple times, of course I mock you, just like you mock the people of Earth with you claiming that we are under your control." answered Jack as the judges looked at each other.

"It seems that under colonials law we have no choice but to put you under arrest until such time that you answer the questions." explained one of the judges as O'Neill was led away as the cameras flashed like crazy.

"Your honors since I cannot get the answers out of the Tau'ri I cannot processed with my defense." stated Admiral Cain "And since it my right to have a defense, these processing's cannot go on until the Tau'ri answers my questions."

"We have reached an impasse so until Colonel O'Neill or another Tau'ri comes forward to answer your questions these hearings are closed." answered the main judge as the hearing ended and the room began to empty and the fall out began.

**Well I hope you liked this chapter and all the trouble that Admiral Cain has created, now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21 Reactions and Countermoves Part 1**

"If you are just joining us the breaking news is that in an unforeseen move the military hearing about Admiral Cain's actions have imprisoned Colonel Jack O'Neill of the Tau'ri for failing to answer the questions presented to the court." said the Colonial New Anchor "Joining us now is Lieutenant Greco of the Colonial Military Justice Core. Lieutenant why did the judges imprisoned Colonel O'Neill?"

"Personally I don't see why?" admitted Lieutenant Greco "I admit there is no case law in Colonial history where we had something like this happened, while I admit Admiral Cain's legal view is interesting it is almost totally baseless."

"How so?" inquired the Anchor

"First while it is true that someone signed for Earth in Gaia's names their ceremony wasn't finished." explained Lieutenant Greco "See when every world signed in they had a Representative of their Lord of Kobol sign and below them where five members of their world's government. While there is room for them to sign, they never did so they are not part of our colonies."

"What about the argument placed forward by some that since their protector Lord of Kobol signed for them that the human names do not matter," inquired the Anchor "The name itself in combination with the holy ceremony is enough to make it binding. We don't consider marriage licenses legal until a Priest or Priestess signs off using the name of their main Lord of Kobol."

"We are dealing with affairs between two separate nations, one of whom don't believe in the Lords of Kobol so we can't use the Lords of Kobol names as legal standing." Stated Lieutenant Greco

"What is Admiral Cain trying to do with this move?" inquired the reporter

"Well it seems that she is trying to say that since the Tau'ri didn't stand down and follow her orders that they are in a state of rebellion against the colonies. That would make it legal for her to fire upon them." explained Lieutenant Greco "That means under her view, we are currently at war with the Tau'ri."

"At War?" inquired the Reporter stunned.

"No, I don't think we are war but she is trying to make it seems that way to the judges." explained the Lieutenant Greco "It is a very strange and out of the box legal view, I don't believe that the Tau'ri will risk a war for this. Likely, there are backroom talks going on right now to hopefully find a way to clear this up. Of course the best answer would be for the judges to look at the laws and release O'Neill."

"The judges clearly disagree with your beliefs since they are holding O'Neill." explained the Report

"Yes, hopefully once they look over the law in more detail they will release him," stated Lieutenant Greco "Let's hope it doesn't cause too much damage between our Colonies and the Tau'ri."

**Inside the Quorum building all three judges along with Admiral Cain headed toward one of the smallest rooms in the building.** Standing outside the door where two armed colonial marines and when they pushed open, the door they found something that none of them had expected. Instead of finding colonel O'Neill sitting in complication about what just happened instead he was juggling three paper balls.

"I was wondering when you would show up." said O'Neill as he tossed the balls around with ease.

"Colonel O'Neill what are you doing?" inquired one of the judges.

"Looks like I am juggling, do you have joggling the intelligence reports didn't cover that," explained Jack as he brought all the balls down "I admit doing it with pieces of paper make it's a little bit harder than actual balls because they aren't balanced."

"Colonel O'Neill are you ready to answer our questions?" inquired one of the judges.

"I will answer any question you want." Explained Jack "However I am a member of a separate military and we are not a member of your colonies. Earth was never a colony of anyone."

"You can keep trying to hold that position but I will keep asking questions, in fact my next questions is where is the location of Earth and all of their colonies." stated Admiral Cain with a smirk.

"Admiral what does that have to do with if you were right to open fire on them or not?" inquired a Judge

"I have already made myself clear; since Earth is a member of the colonies then they have to follow the orders of the ranking military officer. Since I am an Admiral and the Ark Royal had only a Captain I had the higher rank so since he refused to follow orders he was in a state of rebellion." stated Cain "During the Cylon war, we executed people who tried to rebel, did we not?"

"True, but all of those had their day in court first," countered a Judge

"Admiral Cain, is there anything that can be done so that we can reach an agreement?" inquired another of the judges.

"There is nothing to discuss, either you rule that Colonel O'Neill and all Tau'ri are in fact under the direct control of the colonial government or you rule that they are not." said Admiral Cain before grinning.

"You can't possibly believe that we could rule that the people of Earth who have been separated from us for 4,000 years are a member of the colonies because someone signed for them under Gaia's name." offered a judge.

"I remind you that if you rule that way you are by extent ruling that the Articles of Colonization which binds all our worlds together is void which makes our whole government illegal," explained Admiral Cain as the judges eyes widened, they hadn't considered that. "I wonder how many separatist groups would love to see that happen. It would also void every legal and government body created by the colonial government."

"Are you insane Admiral Cain? You want to destroy our government?" inquired another one of the judges.

"Maybe I am the only one to see this but it is clear to me that she wants revenge for some reason either that or she is a few fries short of a happy meal. Now that I think about it, maybe both it is both." said O'Neill as Admiral Cain glared at him. "Lady don't even try to scare me, I have seen a lot more sick and twisted people then you. You are nothing compared to Ba'al or any Goa'uld for that matter."

"Colonel O'Neill please reconsider answer her questions." pleaded a judge but O'Neill had gone back to tossing the balls back in the air.

"So what is your decision?" inquired Admiral Cain

"We need to look through the different court cases." stated the lead judges "In the meantime Colonel O'Neill you will be taken to the nearest Military prison where you will be kept as a material witness until such time that we either come down with our ruling or you decide to answer the questions."

Less than half an hour later and across the mall from the Quorum building was the Presidential estate where yet another emergency meeting was underway.

What where those judges thinking!" raged President Adar to yet another emergency meeting of his cabinet. "They locked up a member of the Tau'ri military for not answering questions?"

"Mr. President I find a lot of faults with their logic but the issues that Admiral Cain raises are enough to rise to the levels needed for detainment," explained the Secretary of Justice. "Admiral Cain has raised a key issue; you yourself along with other presidents have used the fact that representative of the Lords of Kobol signed the articles of Colonization to declare rebellions illegal. I will call for an emergency hearing by the High Court of the Colonies hopefully we will get this whole thing cleared up shortly."

"What would be the effects of ruling that the Tau'ri are not members of the Colonies?" inquired Laura Roslin

"Some could see that the whole Articles of Colonization as void, this would led to multiple separates groups could rise up and claim they are free from the central government. We could have civil wars on our hands." explained the Secretary of Justice. "Conversely, if we try to force the Tau'ri into the fold we will have a war with them and likely still civil war because some worlds will not accept them since they don't follow the Lords of Kobol. I have ordered teams of the best lawyers to search every bit of case law to find a way out but it will take time."

"In the meantime Colonel O'Neill will be in prison, and it will cause even more trouble to any possible relation with the Tau'ri." explained the President

"Well sir, he is going to prison but he isn't really going to prison," explained the Secretary of Justice "We are basically putting him in protective custody; he will be behind bars but separated from the general population."

"I don't see how that is much better." countered Adar

"It is worse than you think." reported Admiral Adama as he stood behind the Secretary of Defense, almost at once all eyes were on him. "Sir, maybe you don't recall but in the Tau'ri military the rank of Colonel is basically our commander, it is one step below a General."

"Great we have an even higher rank then I first thought," cursed Adar as he threw his hands up in the air.

"And judging from conversation he had with General Shepard at the Zoo, the General and the Colonel are very close friends, they joked about their kids being friends." added the intelligence expert "Also both of them mentioned a General Samantha Carter position in their military structure unknown."

"So he is friends with two generals both of whom are likely high ups in the Tau'ri military," cursed Adar "Is there anything else?"

At that question the members of the military shared a look between each other which told Adar that there was more and it wouldn't be good.

"Sir, Colonel O'Neill father is General Jack O'Neill Sr." added Adama as Adar leaned back in his custom chair. He wanted to scream at someone but knew it would not do anything good.

"Frak, so he is friends with two Generals and his father is another one, could this get any worse?" inquired Adar as he saw the looks shared between the military and his intelligence experts. "What now?"

"Sir, from what we have gathered General O'Neill Sr. is the Supreme Commander of all Tau'ri military forces and seems to be a living legend to them." explained Adama as Adar and the other civilians eyes widened a bit.

"We heard a few of the Tau'ri talking about him at the zoo welcoming party, they used the same tone of voice and respect that we use for the late Sargent Wan." explained the Intelligence expert as everyone's eyes widened. Sargent Wan was one the greatest hero from the Cylon war, during the war Sargent Wan had single handily held a machine gun post at a bridge against 15 different Cylons attack for a total of five and a half hours. He fought not one by seven different hand-to-hand battles against the Cylon Centurions and it was almost unheard of to make it through a single hand-to-hand attack. He had then carried two wounded comrades back to a medical post a mile behind lines. He was a living legend until his death two years ago. For this he was award, the highest metal for serious to the colonies not only from his home world of Tauron but all the other colonies making him the only man to every get all 12 metals.

"So we imprisoned the son of the Tau'ri's greatest war hero all because Admiral Cain is a mad woman who wants what she wants and doesn't care if all the colonies burn to get it." snapped Adar "Can't I just pardon O'Neill or for that matter dismiss the charges against Cain."

"You can't this is a formal hearing and until it is officially closed by the judges you can't pardon anyone." explained his Secretary of Justice "Also this matter will be raised by all the different members of the Quorum who want to force the Tau'ri back into the fold."

"And how do they expect us to do that?" inquired Laura Roslin "We don't even know where Earth is and where their nearest colony is."

"In fact we do know where their nearest colony is." countered the intelligence officer as everyone's head turned toward him "Mr. President we had just finished looking over the images from our spy drones when this happened, we have found the nearest Tau'ri world."

"Where is it?" inquired President Adar as the Intelligence expert put a small flash drive into a special slot built into the table. With that memory card insert the information traveled to a projector built into the ceiling. With another push of a button, the slide show began.

"It is here, 2,000 light years away from our boarder or five days of none stop jumping," explained the Intelligence expert as the image of the planet appeared. It was an average size world with two clear landmasses, one which ran along the center part of the world and clearly a super continent of some kind and the other which ran almost pole to pole but was extremely narrow. In fact the two land masses where separated by a narrow strip of water. All around the planet where large stations of some kind and fighter patrols where visible. There were of course multiple warships but there did not seem to be any civilian transports.

"Judging from the intercepts they call this world Valhalla and was only colonized a couple years ago," explained the intelligence expert as he hit a button, which moved the image forward. It showed high-resolution images of the surface. "Even so this is clearly a mostly military world; we have multiple bases and ship yards on the surface."

He hit the button to show six massive ships, which looked to be the same class as the Missouri under consurction on the surface. There were also work being done nearby which seemed to be the construction of more building bays for future ships. The next image showed smaller shipyards for the smaller ship classes, they could even see half finish ships sitting in the shipyards

"We have also spotted military training centers and our first images of their ground equipment." Stated the intelligence expert as the colonials got their first images of the Tau'ri ground forces, they saw tanks moving across the ground and infantry doing drills.

"What do they say about us?" inquired Adar "Maybe if we find out what their press is saying about us we can better present ourselves to them."

"Mr. President, they don't say much about us." explained the intelligence officer

"What?" asked Adar stunned "Are they hiding things about us?"

"No sir, it doesn't seem that way it is just from all the news broadcasts we have looked at we aren't that important to them." explained the officer "In fact off all the news networks which we captured we are only mentioned 5 times for a total of 20 minutes."

"They don't care about us?" inquired Adar stunned.

"Sir, they talked about using new technology to find a mythical creature called Bigfoot got more news coverage then we did." explained the intelligence officer as the colonials sat around stunned, they had just learned that their cousins the 13th Colony of Kobol didn't find them that important.

"This is unacceptable how dare the 13th tribe treat their brothers and sister like that?" inquired a member of the cabinet as she slammed her fist onto the table. "They are only one tribe we are all the other tribes of man, they should be listening to us."

"I hate to say this but it makes some sense," stated Roslin as everyone looked at her "If the Tau'ri have told us the truth, then they have made contact with multiple different worlds and people and they may not consider us of any importance."

"They have to treat us as the most important don't they?" inquired another cabinet member.

"Seemly they don't have to," countered the Intelligence officer as he took a breath "We have also found something else about their world."

"What?" inquired Adar as the imagine changed to show what appeared to be a large lake of some kind. There seemed to be a large city of some kind to the south end of the while the North was nothing but grass.

"This seems to be a theme park of some kind but the most important thing is to the North," explained the intelligence officer as the image zoomed in to show a small grouping of tents. There were clearly people moving around with shovels. "This appears to be an archaeology dig of some kind but look at the ruins."

Next came a higher-level view with outlines of possible buildings surrounded in red highlights.

"What about them?" inquired President Adar "What is so special about remains of those buildings?"

"Sir, we can't be sure without being on the ground but the placement of those buildings match the description of city of the Gods on Kobol," explained the intelligence officer as everyone turned and looked at him.

"Are you saying that this is Kobol?" inquired Adar he was trying to keep his voice steady but it was shaking none the less. They could have found the birthplace of humanity and the home of the Gods.

"As far as we know, all evidence points to yes." confirmed the intelligence officer

"Praise the Lords of Kobol; we have to inform the people we have found the birthplace of humanity." praised Priestess Gogola as she raised her hands up in joy.

"We can't." stated the military advisor as the Priestess looked at him confused "We can't let the Tau'ri know that we have photos of their world, it will stop us from gathering more information."

"You can't be serious we have to tell the people." countered Priestess "We have found our true home."

"No, we will not tell the people." ordered Adar as he looked around the room "For the moment the location of Kobol is classified as top secret by presidential order and anyone found leaking the information will be charged."

"Why are you hiding from this wonderful news?" inquired Priestess Gogola

"Are you forgetting that is a Tau'ri world?" inquired Adar as Priestess Gogola eyes widened as she and others realized what that meant. "They call the world Valhalla, if I remember my holy scrolls correctly that is the place where Thor and the enemies of the Lords of Kobol are from."

"That can't be allowed to stand, we can't let Kobol stay under the command of none believers." snapped Gogola "We must take it back!"

"Are you really considering war over a piece of rock?" inquired Admiral Adama as others looked at him.

"It's Kobol?" countered Gogola as she expected everyone to jump to joy or fall to their knees praising the lords of Kobol.

"You have no solid proof that it is Kobol and even if it is, it is on the other side of the red line." noted Adama "There is no way that the Tau'ri will hand over that world to us without a war and what do you think the Cylons will do when we start a war with our cousins. Maybe some in this room have forgotten about them with all the focus on the Tau'ri but the Cylons are still the biggest threat to humanity."

"They will attack." confirmed the Secretary of Defense "We must keep this quiet for the moment until we know more about how important this world is to the Tau'ri. Maybe we can convince them to give it to us peacefully."

"O'Neill did say that there are countless uninhabited worlds that the Tau'ri could move to." offered the Secretary of State "However to us there is only one Kobol."

"Maybe, but how do we bring this up to them?" inquired the Sectary of Defense "Also I don't believe they will be in any mood to talk to us after we imprisoned the son of their greatest hero. Also it is said that there would be bloodshed if we returned to Kobol."

"You are mistaken," corrected the Priestess "There will be bloodshed if we return to Kobol, unless it is with all the tribes of man together. If the Tau'ri really are the lost tribe of Earth then it is safe for us to return and when that happens a new golden age will begin."

"And what does the Holy scrolls say about how to deal with our cousins?" inquired Adar in a mocking tone as he turned away. "Kobol or not, we need to solve the issues with the Tau'ri before we can even consider bring up that world."

**While the Colonials where debating about what to do about the discovery of Kobol and the imprisonment of Colonel O'Neill the Tau'ri where beginning to make moves in reaction to O'Neill imprisonment.**

"Unscheduled off world activation!" yelled the operator of the Valhalla Stargate Command. Instantly the computer systems activated as the duel ISIS sealed off the gate. The first iris was the traditional metal one while the second one took the form of an energy shield. Also activated were the massive cannons, which turned on the stargate that sat out in the open in the fields, surrounded by multiple forts and bunkers.

"What do we have?" inquired the base commander.

"Sir, getting message, it's the SGC," reported the operator

"Alright open the gate and stand down weapons," said the commander as the iris deactivate and the weapons went on standby. Moments after the all clear radio message went through a woman dressed in a blue air force uniform and with a bag over her shoulder walked through the gate.

"Sir that is General Carter," Reported the operator as the base commander's eyes widened, a surprise visit from the head of the main SGC didn't mean anything good. The gate deactivate behind her as she moved pass the ring of flagpoles, which surrounded the gate.

"Get a hold of General Raj Singh get him here now." ordered the commander as he moved off to speak to the second highest military officer in the combined Tau'ri military behind only General Jack O'Neill.

**The sound of heavy cannon fire caused the grazing wildebeest to lift their heads up before lowering their heads down again to keep eating.** They had become use to the sound of distance fire but when the shells hit the ground less than a mile away from them, even they turned and ran away.

"Look at that herd go." Exclaimed the pilot of the owl transport as the commanding General of Valhalla, General Raj-Singh watched the live fire training of some of the newest units under his command. The native of New Delhi watched as a mix group of American and Russian forces fired heavy artillery pieces onto the target area. So far everything was going good, but there was always room for improvement. The old grudges and mistrusts where still clearly in evidence, the Russians hated the Germans for what happened in WWII, the Chinese and Koreans did the same thing to the Japanese for the same reason, the Americans didn't fully trust the Chinese's or the Russians, and that was only the tip of the iceberg. Some of those long-standing bad blood had faded during the multiple campaigns on Earth to clear warlords out of key areas. Operation Roaring Lion and Black Sand in Central and Northern Africa being among the largest. Luckily, he did not have to deal with trying to mix Arab nations and Israeli unites, even after the signing of peace in the treaty of Moscow it had not caused all the problems to disappear.

"We like to think that we are united but we aren't." whispered General Raj-Singh, there was only so much common military drills and social outings could do to bring people together.

"What was that sir?" said the pilot

"Look at them go." said General Raj-Singh without even looking at the massive herd of animals.

"Sir we have flash traffic coming in." yelled the copilot as General Raj-Sing turned away from the open side door, which gave him a clear view of the soldiers moving their weapons and toward a small screen built into the side of the command Owl. His eyes widened as he saw the report.

"Is something wrong?" inquired the pilot

"Get us back to the stargate." ordered General Raj-Singh as the owl turned and headed toward the stargate. As it flew it went from daylight to nighttime as it flew ahead of the rising sun coming in for a landing beside the gate.

"Is that General Carter?" inquired the pilot as the Owl landed, instantly General Raj-Sing jumped out and saluted the higher-ranking officer.

"General Raj-Sing I assume you know why I am here?" inquired General Carter

"Yes, about the imprisonment of Colonel O'Neill but I didn't expect you to come," admitted General Raj-Singh

"Well Jack is my friend and Cassie is my God-daughter," explained Carter "I want to tell her myself, General O'Neill would have come himself but he couldn't leave Gaia."

"I understand, I was waiting until sunrise to go see Mrs. O'Neill." explained General Raj-Sing "We need to get the Colonel back. Too bad the Odyssey headed to Pegasus with the rest of our attack group."

"It is needed more there besides Central Command on Earth have a different idea on how to deal with these Colonials." explained General Carter as she took a breath "You are to increase your readiness here but as for recovering Colonel O'Neill we have someone else taking care of that."

"Alright, shall we go visit Mrs. O'Neill." Inquired General Raj-Singh

"Doctor O'Neill." corrected Sam "She is a doctor just like her mother."

"My bad." said General Raj-Sing as he looked toward the pilots "Radio for a car."

**The rolling hills were covered with a layer of deep pure white snow, the only green that could be seen belonged to the pine trees which dominated those hills**. A bitterly cold wind blew out of the North and flew right in the face of the two man standing on a raised platform which sat above the ship. The only sound that they could hear beside the wind was the crashing of waves on the nearby shore.

"Cold today Captain Ramius." said one of the man as he pulled his fur lined coat toward him.

"This is Siberia, not you're Miami it is always cold," stated Captain Marko Ramius as he light a cigar, a good Cuban one which had picked up long ago when his submarine had docked in Havana. The old Russian Navy captain had always lite a cigar before every mission and he wasn't going to break his tradition because of his new post and his new ship. He looked out of the con tower at his ship, the Akula. Officially the Akula did not existed having been developed in secret on Earth by the big eight nations of the Tau'ri and not even the militaries of said country. The crew was military and maybe in the future other Akula class ships would be wholly military but for the moment, this ship belonged to the intelligence agencies.

The Akula was the first ship of its kind and it's goal was to fill a very special role in the Tau'ri forces. The Missouri class was the battleship, the Yorktown class was carriers and the others where cruisers and destroyers, the Akula was the first ship in the new Silent Service. It was the Tau'ri version of a submarine but for space travel. It was designed for stealth and gathering information, it was capable of fighting but it's main target would be supply ships not capital ships.

"Captain, all stations are reporting ready," said the American submariner.

"Well let's get this ship going," said Ramius as he put out his cigar and turned and looked at the his homeland coast, which was disappearing in the distance as the Akula powered its way over the water toward the North Pole. By traveling by the pole the ship would hid itself from any of the civilians who happened to be working in the SGC or one the new civilian spaceport, which the Americans had started days earlier.

"Once we are clear of the atmosphere activate our cloak." Order the Captain Ramius to his XO, both of them knew that their cloak did not work going in and out of atmosphere. "Once we are clear of the moon we will enter hyperspace."

"And our destination?" inquired the American XO

"Set course for 12 colonies of Kobol world of Caprica." ordered the Captain Ramius as he looked at the long narrow body of his new ship. It looked like a cross between an old Typhoon class submarine and a starship. It had four large engines which shot out of its back in an X shape.

**Well I hope you liked this chapter, I would like to thank everyone who reviewed. I don't think I have ever gotten so many reviews for a single chapter for any of my stories. Thank you. Now until next time please keep reading Wilkins75.**


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter 22 Reactions and Countermoves Part 2**

The knock at the door at 7:30 in the morning was unwelcomed as Doctor Cassie O'Neill moved toward the front door with only a cup of coffee in her hand. She opened the door only to see two people she did not want to see, one was Sam Carter and the other was General Raj-Singh both of them where in their uniforms.

"Please God, no." pleaded Cassie as her heart raced and her blood turned to ice.

"Cassie, Jack is fine." reassured Sam to the woman who was like the daughter she never had.

"Then what happened?" inquired Cassie as her blood warmed a bit but remained cold. "Did he get hurt?"

"No, but he was doing a hearing before this Quorum of the Twelve Colonies and when he refused to answer questions they arrested him." explained General Raj-Singh as Cassie heart seamed to slow down some more.

"Mom is something wrong?" inquired Samantha O'Neill as she appeared behind her mother on the stairs.

"A little trouble with your dad but he should be fine." explained Cassie with a strong face as Samantha looked up and notice her namesake standing in the door.

"Aunt Sam!" exclaimed Samantha with a warm smile as she moved forward and hugged the woman she called her Aunt. "I thought you weren't going to be here until Thanksgiving?"

"I came to help you father, and don't worry he will be fine. We have a ship heading there now." explained Sam

"Tell me what happened?" inquired Cassie as she allowed the two generals into her house and toward the coffee pot. She poured each a small cup and instantly started making another pot.

"Seams that the Colonial founding document has our names on it signed by someone standing in for Gaia which they claim is our protector God." explained General Raj-Singh "And when your husband refused to answer questions they arrested him until he answered their questions."

"Funny thing is if I remember correctly Daniel met the actual Gaia but I may be mixing them up." admitted Sam, she and SG1 had done so many amazing things over the years that she sometimes forgot the details. "We have meet so many people claiming to be Gods and Goddess that I loss track."

"So are you going to beam out my dad?" inquired Samantha

"If need be, but we hope that they come to their senses before we have to do that." explained Sam as she did the math in her head. "The ship we are sending is coming from Earth so it should arrive in the colonies in a few days."

**That ship, the Akula had already left Earth and was on its way toward Caprica.** With the ship in hyperspace, the four main officers gathered in the meeting room to confirm and review the orders. Unlike most ships in the Tau'ri space force the Akula was very limited when it came to space. It was designed to be as small as possible but still be allowed to carry out its mission. The tight quarters were one of the reason why the entire crew had been taken from the submarine services of different nations. The four officers moved into the meeting room, which was so tiny that the table was bolted to the floor and instead of chairs, there was benches built into the very walls.

"Gentlemen shall we begin?" inquired Captain Ramius as the Old Russian officer looked that his American second in command and his Chinese's third in command. The other officer and his men where the only none submariner but as US navy seals they were used to being on submarines.

"Yes, Captain." Said the American XO as he and everyone else moved to place their hands on small computer pads built into the table. The computer scanned their palms and used touch DNA to confirm who they were. Once that was done a 16 digit access code was entered and only once all four had been entered did the official orders appear.

To the Akula

One. Make your course to the home systems of the 12 colonies of Kobol

Two. Once in system you are to transport seal teams to gather information about the ZPMs located on said words. You are not to take ZPMs unless directly ordered by Earth high command.

Three. Gather detail information for a target book with focus on off world forces and monitor fleet traffic.

Four. If diplomate means fails you are to evacuate Colonel Jack O'Neill Jr from Colonial forces

Five. You are not to engage Colonial forces of any kind unless fired upon first or if orders are sent from Tau'ri command.

"Well it seems that our first official mission is what we expected." said the Chinese officer who was head of the intelligence gathering part of the mission.

"Yes, but it doesn't make it any easier." said the Seal as he looked over his part of the mission.

"No but it shouldn't be too hard, we have the best cloak we have ever made and we have six jumpers in our hanger." said the other American "It is a simple recon mission with the slight possibly of pulling out a POW which would be easy with the tracker in his body."

"I sure hope you are right, but once we are in Colonial space I want this ship set to silent running and we have to keep a very close eye on them." ordered Ramius as all the officers nodded their heads in agreement. The fighter patrols would be the main problem, the submarine crew had not had to deal with fighter patrols under water. The cloaking system would help but it would not stop a ship from running into the ship itself and since when it was cloaked the Akashi had no shields, it would damage both ships.

**Just outside of Caprica city, sat the mountains of Hercules and the among the largest national park in the colonies sat the Colonial Military prison of Eurystheus.** The high security prison had 18 guard towers, two razor wired fences and a solid stonewall twenty feet tall with a catwalk on top for the guards. There whole prison minus one area was covered with a chain-link fence to prevent raptors from landing in the yard and armed guards patrolled the area.

"Welcome to Prison Eurystheus." said the Prison Commander as Colonel O'Neill stepped off the Raptor with chains around his arms and legs. "You are our first member of the 13th tribe. You know if you just answer our questions you will not have to enter our prison, care to change your mind?"

O'Neill said nothing as he moved forward and entered the prison. On the inside it appeared generally like a prison from Earth, maybe a little dated since the heart of the prison was made out of stone but as they said in ordination it was over 220 years old. There was some slight confusion about how to fill out the paperwork but soon Jack found himself standing in a 14 by 14 cell. The room was furnace with a single cot which was made of solid concreate and a toilet, the door was solid steal three inches thick. They had even taken his uniform so he now stood in the orange jump suit.

**Countless millions lightyears away from the 12 colonies the main bulk of the Tau'ri space force was traveling through the void between the Milkyway and Pegasus galaxy.** It was almost three in the morning ship time but General Shepard and most of the senior staff was awake.

"So two of them aren't human?" inquired Jon

"Yes, we have confirmed that one of them is the female Colonial Officer but we still aren't totally sure which one is the other," said the Captain "It is either Doctor Baltar or Doctor Jenny Oldstone."

"Why can't you tell?" inquired Ronan

"Because as long as they are within five feet of each other we can't tell which one the life sign detector belongs to." explained the Captain "And the two of them are currently sharing a bed."

"Well I guess we don't have to assume what they are doing." explained Ronan "Any idea what they are?"

"Since the colonials have only had contact with their Cylons and very distantly with the Goa'uld it is likely one of the two." explained the Captain "I would bet the Cylons since the Goa'uld would be a couple thousand years old and we have seen machines take on human form before."

"Multiple times, in two galaxies." confirmed Shepard "But how do we find out what they are?"

"The best solution will be a blood sample." explained McKay

"But how do we get a blood sample?" inquired Teyla "We can't really say we are worried about infection because we were on their world and we didn't bring it up there."

"True." said General Shepard as he confirmed his wife's statement.

"We do have the anti-boarding suppression system option," offered the Captain as members of SGA1 shared a look. They knew that the anti-boarding system was basically a knock out gas, it would put a person under for a couple of hours if they were asleep then they would never know but if they weren't the last thing they would remember was the gas filling their room. How could they explain it to the colonials if it the whole thing was just a massive error by a new ships computer system.

"Alright." said John as he weighted the options; they had to know what was going on. "Use the gas."

The order went out fast and the marines who carried it out did not know why but they followed the orders. They grabbed the massive tanks which was hocked up to what looked like an old flamethrower. Originally, they had planned to put it as a system wide gas system like the fire system but the worry was that if it was hacked then someone could take over the whole ship. That is where the sprayer came in. The marines moved to the doors of their target rooms, they quickly attacked the sprayers to a nozzle built into the wall. With a simple turn of the nob, the gas left the tank and entered the rooms. Then after a few minutes the marines entered the rooms, luckily all three of them where in their beds and with a quick movement they pulled blood from all three before leaving the room just as they found it. With any luck, they would have no idea that they were even there.

**The Quorum building had become a verbal warzone as the representatives of each of the colonies argued on the floor of the Quorum meeting room about the recent events with the 13****th**** tribe, Earth.**

"We have brought shame down upon us all." started one of the representative from Libra as he stood before one of the 12 podiums, which had been moved onto the floor. There was one podium for each of the colonies and normally it was a challenge to find a person to stand at each of the podiums since like elected officials everywhere most of their time was spent trying to raise money for re-election. Now there was a line for each podium it was if every member wanted to spend time on the floor talking. "We have invited our cousins into our home and then we have spat in their face."

"You are mistaken it is them who spit on our face!" yelled the Sagittaron member on behind her podium "They insulted the Lords of Kobol and they have spat in the face of our laws by not answering simple questions."

"And what would we do if they did that to a member of our miltary?" countered the Caprican member "We can't let faith blind us to simple truth, that these people offer us a great future. Aside from the economic benefits that can come a new massive market we must look at the new technology they have. They have said they have a cure for cancer and who knows what else, do you want to doom all the people in the colonies to that because they refuse to answer questions."

"They can claim to have anything they want." countered the Gemenon member "We can't let the promise of money led us astray from the path of the Lords of Kobol and how do we know that this cure isn't a ploy to led us astray."

"How could they led us astray, they are but one world and we are twelve. It is we who should be leading them back onto the path of the Lords of Kobol." countered the Scorpia member "If our faith can be removed that easy then it is nothing more than a plastic sheet and not worth it."

"We still have no proof to anything these Tau'ri are claiming to be true," explained the Tauron member.

"Because it isn't true, they are spreading lies and nothing more." snapped the Canceron member

"Have you all forgotten about the lives that where saved by the Tau'ri when that terrorist attacked happened just down the road!" exclaimed the Caprica Member as she pointed down the road toward the Colonial Station. "Did you forget that without the Tau'ri those people would be dead."

"And how many of our people were wounded because of the Tau'ri?" countered Canceron Member "Could they have been targeting our people on purpose? These are questions we need to know, I say we open up a hearing on these shootings to investigate the actions of the Tau'ri."

"Are you crazy? Or just stupid?" inquired Caprican member as the debate kept up even as it entered the fifth none stop hour and showed no sign of stopping.

**While the Quorum members where debating the people where speaking out with their voices, there was of course protests for and against the Tau'ri. **The protesters against the Tau'ri had a long range of complaints against the people against Earth, most of them where based on issues around religion or the Tau'ri general refusal to rejoin them. While the pro Tau'ri where many calling for calm and treating the Tau'ri as a separate nation, which had be treated as such. While the protests where spread out all over the colonies with different colonies having more pro or against Tau'ri, the three largest protests where focus on the Colonial Mall in front of the Quorum building and in front of the Presidential Mansion. The largest was naturally in front of the makeshift Tau'ri embassy on Caprica, from above it looked as if a sea of humanity had surrounded the front of the building. Luckily, the spaceport behind the building prevented the building from being surrounded.

In order to avoid the protestors and to hide the meeting Admiral Helena Cain had walked through one of the tunnels which lead from the main governmental office building to the Mansion of the President of the 12 tribes of Kobol. When she entered, she was led through cleared corridors and into a private meeting with the President.

"Admiral Cain." said President Adar as he sat in a lounge chair with a glass of the finniest alcohol sitting beside him on the table.

"President Adar." said Cain without snapping to attention, it was a sign of her disrespect to her president.

"I guess in your eyes I kind of deserve the lack of official protocol," stated the President as he took a drink. "Please have a drink."

Cain looked at Adar and at the bottle of green liquid on the counter; slowly she walked over and poured herself a glass.

"So Cain, I guess I have to ask the question why?" inquired Adar as he moved his hand around so that the liquid turned around in the glass. "Why are you doing this?"

"Why? Why? You haven't figured that out yet?" inquired Cain with enough venom in her voice to kill a Tauron Bull. "If you can't figure that out then I am ashamed to say I voted for you."

Adar let that one slide he had other battles to fight.

"From my understanding you want an official apology and reinstatement to your command," said Adar as Cain glared at him. "You are smart enough to know that isn't going to happen, even if you come out of these hearings what will happen to your military career. You will never have a ship of your own again, you will be sent to some backwater outpost and left to root. That is your best outcome if you keep on your current course but there is another way."

"I know this offer you presented to my lawyer, those weak paper pushing desk jockeys wanted me to take it." said Cain "I will not retire."

"Admiral Cain, you swore an oah to the 12 tribes of Kobol and what you are doing now is putting all those lives at risk." snapped Adar "You are pushing us toward a war with the Tau'ri over your ego."

"My ego." said Cain as she lifted her drink up and poured it out so it spilled over some of the finest carpets in the colonies. "I know that I will go down in history as the woman who fired on the Tau'ri. What I care about is what that history says about me and most importantly about all men and women who died under my command. It seems to be glossed over by you so called leaders but the Tau'ri killed thousands of good loyal solider and you want to make nice with them."

"They were defending themselves," countered Adar

"They crossed into our space, I am charged with defending our home, our way of life and when I lead my men into battle I expect the people back home to honor us. In return I get spit at, insulted and questioned." snapped Cain "I will honor those men and women who died under my command by fighting for them; I will not allow them to die, in what those frakers in the media call "Cain's Folly."

"You fired on the Tau'ri." countered Adar "How is causing more to die because of your actions be honoring them. You are holding back any chance for peace and reunification."

"Don't kid yourselves Mr. President," laughed Cain "You actually think my hearing is holding back peace? No all chances for peace and reunification died when Doctor Woolsey took the podium and said how the people of Earth don't believe in the Lords of Kobol."

"That will be almost impossible task to overcome but…" started Adar

"And what will happen when the people find out that the Tau'ri have settled Kobol?" inquired Cain as Adar's eyes became as wide as dinner plates. "Yes, Mr. President I know about your little mission to spy on the Tau'ri and that you have found Kobol."

"How?" inquired Adar

"News like that gets out even if you try to hid it." explained Cain "I just learned sooner than most because I still have friends in the military and there are some who are not pleased with the gag order you have placed on them."

"What do you want?" inquired Adar

"I want something that you can't give me," explained Admiral Cain "I want vindication for my actions and either way I will get it because there is no way to avoid a war."

"You want a war?" inquired Adar stunned.

"No, but I know it will come and when it comes you will need people like me to win it," stated Cain as she stood up. "Thanks for your time Mr. President; I must be going I have to study the Tau'ri ships for the coming war."

The moment Admiral Cain was gone President Adar threw his glass across the room letting it shatter apart the moment it crashed into the wall.

"Mr. President," said the Political Advisor as he entered the room to see his president sitting in a chair staring at the wall.

"What is it?" inquired Adar as he noticed that his advisor was holding a small computer under his arm.

"Mr. President we got a video message from the Tau'ri." explained the Advisor "They sent it by a messenger because they can't trust that we will not arrest them."

"Can't say I blame them," explained Adar "What does the message say?"

The political advisor put the computer in front of his president and with a simple tap he woke it up from sleep mode. The screen showed a video display on it, with another tap the video started playing. It showed a woman standing behind a news desk with the words CNN behind it.

"If you're just joining us there is a situation growing on a group of worlds called the 12 colonies of Kobol, the people of these worlds have imprisoned the son of General Jack O'Neill after refusing to answer questions at a hearing," explained the woman as images of protests appeared on the side of the screen. "Multiple leaders from around the world have spoken up and the President has even said that all options are on the table for bringing Colonel O'Neill home."

"Could this day get any worse?" inquired Adar as he rubbed his temples.

"There is over ten hours of news broadcasts and political statements made by different people." explained the political advisor "I haven't looked over them all but the first one I watched had multiple people calling for a break of all contact with us. As they said "These people of the colonies of Kobol have proven that they are not mature enough to act on the galactic stage and should be left alone until they are mature.""

"I need another drink." gowned Adar as the advisor swallowed.

"Sir, there is one more thing. The message also said that the Tau'ri sent copies of some of these broadcasts to the news agencies here so that the people of the colonies could learn about what the people of Earth think about us," explained the advisor

"Now I need more than one drink," stated Adar

**Lightyears away from the Caprica on the Missouri Doctor Jenny Oldstone left the sleeping Doctor Baltar in his room and crossed the hall and entered her own personal room**. The room was dark and was a matching set to the one she had just left. It had a large bed with two small nightstands on either side, a dresser sat opposite of the bed with the flat screen TV over it. She was about to head into the bathroom when she noticed that she was not alone, sitting at the small round table in the corner of the room was General Shepard with two armed soldiers standing behind him.

"General Shepard, what is the meaning of this?" inquired Jenny

"Why are you here?" inquired Shepard

"What are you talking about?" inquired Jenny

"Funny thing is that one of fun new technologies on this ship is what we call life sign detectors so we can track the location of everyone on this ship." explained Shepard as he held up a small flat screen computer, it showed an outline of the room with multiple dots on it. "In fact it is so advanced that we can tell if a person is fully human or another race all together."

Jenny blinked as her heart rate picked up, when that happened one of the dots flashed quicker than it had earlier.

"So when you bordered we learned that you're not fully human." Explained Shepard

"I don't understand…" started Jenny

"Cut the crap you're not human in fact if I was betting men I would say you're a Cylon," explained Shepard

"General you must be drunk, I am clearly human just look at me," countered Jenny

"Your race isn't the first robotic race to take on human form so what you look like doesn't matter to us." explained Shepard "See last night we took a blood sample and we found the micro machines in your blood, your cells also have none organic parts in it."

"I see." said Jenny as she crossed her arms over her chest. "So I guess there is no attempting to hide it anymore, yes General Shepard I am a Cylon."

"Your kind learned to take human forms; you and Boomer are both Cylons." stated Shepard

"Yes, but Boomer doesn't know she is a Cylon." explained Jenny "She is a sleeper agent."

"You're the one who created that opening in the Colonial computer system," confirmed Shepard

"Correct again, we were planning to attack the Colonials," admitted Jenny as Shepard blinked, he had expected her to try to hide that but she admitted it. "See a few years earlier the Colonials sent a stealth ship into our space, after that day we have been planning to remove the untrustworthy colonials from the universe our God created."

"Well we aren't going to let you do that." Said Shepard

"General I can say this with 100% honestly we have abounded that plan, we have no plans to start a war with the Colonials." Explained Jenny "Your people have changed the game, now just like the colonials we want to know more about you and the shape of the galaxy."

"So you have no hostile intentions toward us?" inquired Shepard as he raised an eyebrow at the idea "I find that hard to believe."

"Well one of our models isn't pleased by the decision of the other models but he will have to go along with it," explained Jenny as Shepard raised an eyebrow, she knew the question forming in his head. "See there are different Cylon models, I am model Six. Each model has a vote on our council."

"I see." stated Shepard as he stood up.

"What are you going to do with me?" inquired Jenny

"An hour ago I was going to arrest you and show the evidence to the other colonials." explained General Shepard "However the Colonials have done some very stupid things since we left their worlds and officials on Earth want to leave the door open to peaceful relations with your kind. Also one of the reasons we are bringing the Colonials with us is to show them what we can do. You might as well learn it to."

"And our people don't want to harm you." explained Jenny "In fact before we left I learned that a diplomatic ship was on the way to this Valhalla of yours, should arrive at your world in a couple of days."

"I see." confirmed Shepard as he took a breath. "However since you're already a spy we can't trust you fully, you will have extra monitoring on you and the other Cylon however we will not tell the Colonials about you."

"That is very kind of you," admitted Jenny

"In return you are to record a message to your other models, if we are going to talk as equals we can't let them hid the fact that they look human from us." explained Shepard as Jenny nodded her head.

"Very well, we are done here," said Shepard as he stood up and then all three of them left the room leaving the now unmasked Cylon alone in her room wondering how this was going to play out.

**The talk about the Tau'ri faith and the imprisonment of Colonel O'Neill was all over the talk shows on Sagittaron.** Multiple preachers in the streets where calling for the heads of the Tau'ri or at best those who refused to follow the will of the Lords of Kobols. Sitting in one of the back corner booths of a in the wall dinner sat two man and a woman. All three were in their early thirties and where dressed in above average cloths for the place. One of the men even wore a gold watch with his family crest on the face of the watch in solid gold and silver.

"We have to make our move." said the first men as the voice a priest called down the judgement of Zeus on the Tau'ri came from outside.

"It's too risky." countered the woman with fear in her voice. "With everything going on they will be locked down."

"And what we are doing now isn't already risky?" inquired the second man "This is for the future we have to go."

"What about the children?" inquired the woman "We would put them at risk as well in this move."

"We must do this for them." Countered the second man "You know what will happen to them here if we are discovered."

The woman lowered her head before nodding her head.

"There grandparents would assume custody of them and force them to go to a religious camp." confirmed the woman.

"More like a brain washing camp." Added the second man as the first man checked his golden watch, more than a few times a mugger had tried to get his watch only to hand it back to him and beg forgiveness for trying to take it.

"Alright, I'll get the tickets for Caprica today," admitted the woman as their check arrived.

"Sir, I have to ask are you?" inquired the waiter with shaking in his voice

"Yes, I am Adeipho Spiros of the Spiros family," confirmed the first man with a smile as he took out the money to pay.

"No, sir you don't have to pay. Your family has done so much for the people and the Lords of Kobol, a free meal is the least we can do." said the waiter before bowing to the only son of the head of the Order of Zeus, the single largest religious order in the colonies.

"Another benefit of being a Spiros, you don't have to pay for food." Laughed the second man, the Spiros family was the single most powerful family on the planet. While other family gained power from companies the Spiros had gained power by faith, over the centuries so many Spiros had been head of the Order of Zeus that it was almost considered an inherited position for the oldest son or if need by daughter. The Spiros family had spread out from religion into the political field so much that no one had been elected on the planet without the backing of the Spiros.

"It isn't his fault the family he was born into," stated Adeipho's wife, Sabra as she came to her husband's defense. There marriage had been arranged and her family the Contos was second in power only to the Spiros. Luckily for both of them their families had married them to people who believed as they did.

"No, but it is kind of funny." said the man as he leaned forward so that only the two of them could hear him. "May the creator watch over you both and protect you as we make this journey."

"And may the Creator watch over you." answered Adeipho making sure that none of the people heard him.

**Well I hope you liked this chapter, I would like to thank everyone who reviewed. Until then keep reading Thanks Wilkins75.**


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter 23 Legal Battles **

The battle over the legal status of the 13th colony of Earth had moved off Caprica to the nearby world of Libran and the famous Supreme Hall of Justice for the Colonies of Kobol. There twelve judges one from each world would stand in judgement of the case. All the legal experts had predicted one of two possible outcomes, either they would find that the Tau'ri where already members of the Colonies and bound by the laws of the Quorum or they were a free nation. It was customary for each world to send a lawyer to help present their case and while the invitation had been sent to the Tau'ri they had publicly snubbed the invite.

"If you're just joining us the judges have been in champers for days looking over the different case laws and the founding legal and religious documents of the colonies." said the reporter as she stood before the entrance of the hall of justice. "Now joining us to discuss the possible outcome of the case is Retired Representative Aegeus Spiros of Sagittarian 1st. As many of you know the Spiros family has ties dating back to the very founding of Sagittarian and their family has had the most members of the Quorum and family members in the highest levels of the holy order of Zeus."

"Thank you for having me," said an older man with a Pin of the holy order of Zeus on his suit.

"Now Mr. Spiros what do you and more importantly your family think about the possible outcome of this case." Inquired the reporter

"Well I can't speak for my brother who is the leader of the Holy order of Zeus, but if the judges follow the will of the Lords of Kobol then they will find that these Tau'ri are not Tau'ri they are members of the colonies and have to follow our laws." stated Aegeus Spiros "That includes the religious laws."

"But I am sure you have seen the broadcasts from Earth, they do not believe in the Lords of Kobol and are you willing to risk conflict with them because of what they believe in?" inquired the reporter

"We on Sagittarian know that the only way to order is through faith and the faith of the Lords of Kobol is the only true faith," explained the old man with force in his voice

"Mr. Spiros are you willing to risk a war for this?" inquired the reporter "Some from worlds such as Caprica and Picon have said forcing the Tau'ri in may lead to that."

"Earth is the junior tribe and the holy scrolls say they were the smallest of the tribes. Our little brothers and sisters need to be taken in hand by their order siblings," answered Mr. Spiros as a figure ran up to the reporter.

"Sorry to interrupt but we just got the ruling from the judges." said the reporter as she looked down at the paper. "In a 7 to 5 vote, the judges have ruled that the signing of representatives of the Lord of Kobol is binding in the eyes of the Lords of Kobol. In the eyes of the Lords of Kobol Earth and all their worlds are members of the colonies; however, the civilian part of the ceremony which was never finished because of the lack representatives from Earth at the time of the signing means that they are not full members of the Quorum. As such, Earth and all their colonies fall into a legal statues the same as minor settlements, they are protectorates of the Colonies until such time that they sign to become full members. Since Colonel O'Neill refused to answer the legal questions in the hearing then he will remain imprisoned until such time that he answers said questions."

"So you heard it here first the Judges have somehow split the difference, the Tau'ri and all their worlds are protectorates of the Colonies, until they sign the articles of Colonization." explained the reporter "Colonel O'Neill will remain in prisoned until such time that he answers questions."

**Only a couple of systems away General Carter stood on the bridge of one of the newest Daedalus class ships the USS James Lawrence. **She had wanted to spend a days with Cassie helping her and spending some time with the kids but the high command on Earth had different ideas. The Lawrence sat on the edge of a system almost the same distance away from the Colonial boarder as Valhalla was only it was opposite side of Colonial space. The Lawrence had crossed through colonial space without exiting hyperspace so the Colonials had no idea that they had passed through their space.

"What does the scanners say?" inquired General Carter

"Ma'am the system has fourteen planet size bodies but nine are only about the size of Mercury." explained the sensor operator "of the other five, two are gas giants, one of the planets is about the size of earth while the other two are super planets. We are too far away to make out what type of atmospheres they have."

"I see." Said Sam she instantly knew that super planets was a term for a planet that was 15 to 17 times the mass of Earth but was not a gas giant. "How many ships?"

"We got over two hundred ships most located around the three main planets." explained the sensor operator "However we have one massive ship."

"How large?" inquired Carter

"Large enough to fit all of Atlantis inside." explained the operator as Captain of the Navy officer who was the captain of the Lawrence gave a whistle at that.

"That is big but without a shield we could destroy it with the Asgard beams if we have to." explained the Captain.

"Sir if I am looking at this correctly the armor on that thing is nine feet thick in most places and it seams to be built with a double haul with voids in the center before another layer of nine feet thick armor." explained the operator "Computers gives it a strong chance of making it through a beam strike."

"Then a nuke beamed into the heart of the ship." countered the Captain.

"Let's avoid that shall we." ordered Sam "Any sign of any technology higher then what the colonials have?"

"I am getting a lot more data bursts which seem to carry more information than the colonial version but other than that I don't have any signs of advanced technology." explained the Operator "No shields and no sign of a traditional hyperspace drive."

Sam placed her hand under her chin as she thought about her next move, there was only so much information she could get from out here and sooner or later one of those countless fighters patrolling would find the ship. "Captain, Make your course toward that ship and prepare to broadcast our message, stand by weapons and FTL as well."

"Aye aye, General." confirmed the Captain as the Lawrence moved into what had to be the Cylon home system. It did not take long for the Lawrence to enter the Dradis range of the Cylon ships and instantly some of the larger capital ships and most of the fighters moved toward the Lawrence.

"Open a radio broadcasts," ordered Carter as a whistling sound filled the air; most of the ship was actually navy personal. "Attention Cylon warships this is General Samantha Carter of the United States ship the Lawrence. We come in peace so that we can discuss issues of importance between the Cylon race and the Tau'ri."

Carter watched as more fighters came swarming out of the ships and headed straight toward the single Tau'ri warship.

"Be warned if you fire on us not only will you be seen as an act of war against us. We will inform the colonials about how you race has learned to take on human form and we will give them the technology to find all your models." explained Carter as she nodded her head toward one of the officers. With a single flip of the switch, another voice began broadcasting across the Cylon wireless network.

"Stand down my brothers and sisters, I am recording this message to you from onboard the Tau'ri vessel Missouri on our way to another galaxy." explained the message that the model six had recorded. "The Tau'ri have technology which is capable of detecting the differences between our kind and humans within seconds, when they learned of this they didn't inform the colonials with me instead my cover remains. The Tau'ri have no interest in fighting us and I recommend that we start direct talks."

"So want to talk?" inquired Carter as instantly all the Cylon ships came to a stop, even the fighters went dead in space. For a long moment nothing more happened then the radio came alive again.

"General Carter." said a human voice, clearly female but other than that she couldn't tell anything more about what the Cylon looked like. "The Cylon Collective welcomes your ship to our home system."

"Thank you, now I know our arrival may be a surprise to you but if your people are up to it we would like to start talks right away." inquired Carter "We are ready to receive your delegation at any time."

"Give us an hour." Said the voice as the radio line went dead.

"Ma'am is it wise to invite the Cylons onboard? They could bring a nuke on board," offered the Captain

"They could." admitted Carter as she took a breath, the ship had alarms which should detect any nuke and any bioweapon the Cylons may try to use once they reached the ship but if it got pass those alarms they would be dead. "But if they do then the Colonials will find out about how their enemy can take on human form and they would have declared war on us. Both of those options are something those Cylons know about and will not want to risk that."

**Back on Caprica in Eurysthesus Military prison Colonial Military intelligence was going over the notebook that Colonel O'Neill had left in his prison cell while he went out for his ninety minutes of exercise in the yard. **The officers never took the notebook, which had been given to the Tau'ri colonel just like a few other luxuries out of the cell. Instead, they flipped through the pages taking photos of the writing on the paper.

"Anything of interest?" inquired the head officer

"Maybe, take a look at this," said the man taking the photo of the notebook and the list written on it. "We may have just found the name of one of the colonies."

"Good, get it to the President at once," ordered the head officer with a smile the Tau'ri had just made a mistake.

**Far away from the Caprica the meeting of the great powers in the galaxy was coming to a close on Gaia. **While the smaller powers which claimed only a planet or two had left days earlier the major powers had remained, over the course of those days a deal was hammer out and finally all the terms had been reached. While no one side was fully happy and there was open questions about how long the peace would last between the different Lucian Alliance factions and the Free Jaffa Factions.

"So General O'Neill it seems the time spent here was to great effect." said the British PM as she, Jonas Quinn and General O'Neill stood and watched as the different Lucian Alliance factions and the Free Jaffa factions signed multiple copies of official document.

"I shouldn't be here; I should be handling things with my clone." explained General O'Neill

"We will get your son back," said the PM "The colonials aren't stupid enough to do anything to him."

"Ma'am one thing I learned here a long time ago was that the very young don't always do what they are told." explained General O'Neill

"Correct General but your race has matured very well." Said a voice as O'Neill turned to see a female Nox standing behind him, it was as if she had not aged a day since they less meet almost 20 years earlier.

"Lya," greeted General O'Neill

"When the Asgard first informed us about their plan to raise you up to the 5th race we all had our questions but this is a good first step in proving that their faith wasn't misplace. While your race is still young you are learning," explained Lya as the signers of the documents finally finished, but there was no handshakes instead most still glared at each other with hate and mistrust in their eyes. "Which is better than most races."

"Thank you for your kind words." said the PM before turning to Jonas, she pulled out a small computer pad and handed it to the former member of SG1. "Mr. Quinn the member nations of the Tau'ri have finished their talks and a protocol for yours and any world joining us have been decided."

"Really?" inquired Jonas as he took the pad and looked over the requirements. The basic requirements was what he had expected to see, a stable elected government for ten earth years or more and different civil rights required by law for all advanced life forms. Three things did stand out to him as slightly odd, the vote to be allowed in had to at least 95% of the worlds population over the age of 18 years allowed to vote even if they are imprisoned and it had to pass by three fourths majority. Then the member nations of the Tau'ri would vote for members, which would pass by a two-thirds majority. The last bit was the oddest of them all; his world vote in the Tau'ri governing body would be spilt into five districts.

"Why five sections?" inquired Jonas slightly confused, the Tau'ri general assembly was based off population with each nation getting a percentage based on how many people lived in their nation. "Why have five districts instead of one for our world."

"Officially it is make sure that the people have a greater control over the elected politicians." explained the PM "Unofficially the Chinese and Indian government don't want your world to have more votes than they do on the Tau'ri council. Doesn't make much sense to me considering you're likely to vote together anyhow but it was the only real way they would agree to it."

"Politics is Politics no matter what world you're on," explained O'Neill as he wondered how long this peace treaty would last. "It's all about image."

**Back on Caprica three colonial raptors flew away from the presidential mansion passing over the still being rebuilt colonial station, the old Colonial Military headquarters which now severed as a museum and passing to its left where the giant stone statues of the Lords of Kobol which was at the heart of the plus sign shaped colonial mall. **

"Sir, I still don't think this is a good idea. The courts have ruled they are members of our worlds they should come to you." Said the political advisor to the President as the Raptor pilots began their traditional rotation to protect against any missile threats from below.

Aside from the President the raptor carried five people, his political advisor, two marine guards and an army officer who had the nuclear launch briefcase where all common sights to see when the President went anywhere. The newest addition was the newswoman who had a small personal camera and broadcaster. The Quorum had thrown a little hissy hit when he announced his plans and this was the only way to make then see the meeting was not a cover up for something else.

"I have to go." stated President Adar as he closed his eyes and thought about the massive task in front of him. It took almost fifteen minutes but soon the raptors where coming in for a landing on the old Greystone military spaceport. As the raptors landed and the president looked up the small hill to the old officers building, it was a rather nice building for its age but from the outside, it looked no different from any other building. However rising above it all was a deep royal blue flag with a silver ring around it and an upside down V shape in the center.

Right in front of him was the closed main hanger where armed Tau'ri soldiers stood keeping a close eye on him, his political advisor and the two colonial marines, which followed him as they moved pass. He was not surprised to see that the news cameras had gotten into the now civilian spaceport and so he knew that all his actions were going out live. Standing beside the stairs was a short man dressed in a Tau'ri military uniform. The man was uncommonly short, almost a head and a half shorter then Adar but one thing which stood out was a massive knife which hung from his belt where a pistol normally would be, the man's gun was on another strap under his arm. On top of his head was a red cap of some kind with a symbol of a snake of some kind, it is fangs out ready to strike.

"Mr. President I am Major Labh." said the man in a voice which told everyone that he wasn't a man to be messed it. "You are all expected please follow me."

Major Labh as they turned and headed up the built in stairs, as they climbed the steps they passed a low brick wall which stood maybe as tall as the President which surrounded the building. Aside from that and the armed guards which where clearly visible walking around the wall, the upper walkway around the building and the sharp shooters on the roof. That being said Adar knew there was likely other defenses he couldn't see, however the two men he came to see where sitting outside around a round metal garden table. Two other of the short men dressed similar to Major Labh stood about ten feet behind the sitting men, only these men had assault rifles included with the pistol and knife. The colonial guards moved to the opposite side so that they were across from the Tau'ri forces.

"Doctor Woolsey, Minister Fang Gan." greeted President Adar as the news woman moved to get a better view, all knew that this was going out live across the colonies. "Thank you for having me over so soon so that we can hopefully find a solution to this and other issues."

"I must admit President Adar when I asked Colonel O'Neill to go in my place to this hearing I wasn't expecting him to be arrested." started Doctor Woolsey as he drank some coffee. "And if you wanted to get the attention of the people of Earth arresting the only son of the greatest hero in human history. Who is also a hero in his own right is one way to get our attention. Not a way I would recommend, the media on Earth is not your friend at the moment."

"I have seen the reports and I believe we can come to an arrangement which will befit us all," countered President Adar as he sat down, his advisor doing the same.

"I should hope so, already there is serious discussion among our leaderships about if this is even worth our time," explained Woolsey as he put some cream in his coffee. "However most feel that we cannot leave until we at least have a border agreed upon."

"Aren't you going to talk about how the courts ruled that you are already members of our colonies?" Inquired Adar

"No, because there is nothing to discuss." explained Woolsey calmly "We are not members of your colonies and if you think that 12 judges will make all our worlds becomes yours then you fooling yourselves."

"We are not fools," inquired Adar before he decided to show off to the Tau'ri and the people watching live across the colonies. "We know of four of your worlds, Earth, Athosia, and Valhalla and just recently we learned of another world, a world you kept hidden from us a world you call Disney World."

The final part of the statement raised the eyebrows of all the Tau'ri.

"What?" asked Woolsey as he placed his cup of coffee down.

"You must not blame Colonel O'Neill he left a notebook when he was taken outside for a work out, our intelligence found it." explained Adar with a grin, he wanted to show that he could surprise the Tau'ri. "It said to make sure to book the trip to Disney World for Christmas Vacation. I am sure you wanted to hide this from us but an open and honest exchange is key to any real hope of a relationship."

The Tau'ri blinked and for the longest time no one said anything then finally and to his amazement one of the guards behind Woolsey broke out laughing. It was as if a damn had broken and the other guard broke out laughing.

"Yes, and the leader of the World is President Mickey Mouse." Laughed one of the guards, that caused even their commander to laugh and Woolsey and Fang Gan to chuckle. That is when a sinking feeling started to form in the President's stomach, it was that same feeling that he got when he was in middle school and the first girl he asked out turned him down. He knew he was about to get some very bad news.

"Sorry, President Adar but if we are being honest then I must inform you that Disney World isn't a planet it is a series of four theme parks all located pretty much side by side on Earth," explained Woolsey as Adar's face turned a bright red. He turned to see the camera was on him and he realized he had just made a fool of himself to not only the Tau'ri but to his own people. "Colonel O'Neill must be planning a trip there for his kids for a Christmas surprise."

"I have brought my granddaughter to Disney Resort Shanghai she loved it like only a child can." added Fang Gan as he remembered the moments. "Oh well if you really want to know how much system we control you might as well know, as per the agreement just signed on Gaia. We control 20% of this galaxy and at the moment we have wrestled controlled over most of the Pegasus Galaxy from the Wraith but aside from the Atlantis we don't have an official world in that Galaxy. We are the major space power there. Tell me Mr. Adar how will your worlds which would take days to reach our nearest world and decades to reach Earth have any realistic possibly of forcing us to do anything?"

That caused Adar to blink same went for the political advisor, but before anyone could say anything more and aid walked up and handed a computer pad to Woolsey. He took it and quickly read it over nodding his head as he read the message before handing the message off to Fang Gan, the older man took out his glasses and read the message as fast as he could.

"Well that makes this more interesting." added Fang Gan with a grin.

"What does?" inquired President Adar

"Mr. President we just got world from one of our ships, they have entered the Cylon's home system." explained Woolsey "In about an hour direct one on one talks between the Tau'ri and the Cylon Race will be taking place."

"You're going to talk with the Cylons?" inquired Adar stunned.

"Of course, you have did the same thing when you signed your peace treaty with them almost forty years ago." defended Woolsey "Besides in your own peace treaty you gave them everything beyond your read line. This isn't acceptable and a single race can't claim the whole of the galaxy so we need to settle a real boarder and that is what we plan on doing."

"You need to consult with us first," said the advisor "it is against Colonial law to talk with the Cylons unless you're a government official."

"Well it is a good thing we are not subject to Colonial Laws, we are our own people and right now the Cylons have treated us far better then you have," explained Fang Gan "We are even considering a trade agreement with them. I wonder what they have to offer the rest of the galaxy member the Lucian Alliance or maybe a Jaffa faction would want to open talks with them as well."

In truth, Fang Gan and the Tau'ri had no interest in introducing the Cylons to any other group at the moment but the treat would show once again that the Tau'ri are not under your control.

"Your make a trade deal with machines who have killed millions." snapped Adar "They are the enemy of humanity."

"I admit in general I am not a fan of making deals with a race which has killed millions. When one look at it from the outside not clouded by your history with the Cylons, some could see it as a fight for their freedom." explained Woolsey as Adar's eyes widened "Besides I have made deals with an Alien who latterly used humans as cattle to feed upon, so a deal with the Cylons wouldn't offend me."

"This is unacceptable." snapped Adar as he slammed his fist on the table. "You can't do this to us."

"We do nothing." defended Woolsey "You claim that we must bow to your leadership that we are under your control, we are not. We are our own independent people and we have faced down far more deadly races then you to remain that way."

"This isn't over." Said Adar as he stood up and prepared to leave, he had expected Woolsey and Fang Gan to try to stop him but instead Fang Gan pointed toward the stairs.

"If you want to leave, leave," offered Fang Gan as the President stopped for a moment. "No one is stopping you and if you want us gone we will leave as soon as you give us back our colonel. In fact we don't have to debate the boarder you can keep your red line that you made with the Cylons. We can work around that easy enough."

"And you will make a deal with the Cylons." snapped Adar

"If we want to, your people are not the only people in the galaxy we can trade with." explained Woolsey before looking President Adar in the eyes, before standing up. "This meeting is over."

Adar and the colonials stormed down the hill with Doctor Woolsey, Major Labh and two other Tau'ri solders behind him. Adar's rage was building as he reached the bottom of the hill, he moved beyond the line of Tau'ri defenders toward the waiting Raptors.

**Less than a hundred yards away from the President and the Tau'ri sat the private hanger of a powerful and very religious woman who was more than willing to allow the heir to the main Spiros family. **So standing by the door waiting was Adeipho Spiros, his wife and four kids. Alongside them were four other families each with kids of their own.

"Are we sure we are ready for this?" inquired Adeipho as he looked his wife in the eyes.

"We are here and let's hope the creator protects us." Prayed Sabra as the others prayed to themselves. Finally, the time had come, if they stayed longer the risk of a passing Colonial patrol finding them would go up.

"Now!" yelled Adeipho as he threw the door open.

The sound of a metal door flying open caused the Tau'ri and Colonials to spin around to face the sound. All of them raised weapons bringing them to a ready position as they saw figures running out of the nearest hanger. The both sides was within seconds of pulling the trigger when they saw that the figures were just regular looking families, with small children and no sign of any weapons. In fact they had their hands raised as they ran toward the Tau'ri line.

"Sanctuary we want sanctuary!" yelled all of them as the both sides stood stunned for a moment, it was that moment of surprise that allowed the family to pass through the Colonial lines and fall to their knees in front of Major Labh and Doctor Woolsey.

"Please, we beseech you we want sanctuary." pleaded the first man "We want freedom! We need your help!"

"What? Do you mean?" inquired Major Labh as multiple Colonial marines moved forward to grab the civilians only to have the Tau'ri raise their own weapons at point blank range.

"Come closer and you will find out if your Lords are real or not." cursed a Tau'ri solider.

"Please we want to worship as we please and here we will be imprisoned for that," explained the man who was clearly the leader.

"Who are you?" inquired Major Labh

"Adeiphio Spiros." answered Adeiphio "This is my family and others who believe as we do, please we want to worship the one creator God as we please."

"Stand up Mr. Spiros you are among friends here." said Doctor Woolsey as he offered his hand to the man, helping him to his feet. "You will have refuge here."

"Thank you." said a woman with tears in her eyes.

"You can't take our people," stated Adar as he moved forward with his marines behind him, instantly the Tau'ri raised their own weapons and sound of a bolt of a heavy machine gun pulling back could be heard. Adar looked up to toward the top of the hanger only to see two heavy machine guns turned on him, one was already ready and the other was seconds away from being ready. Everyone stopped as the news camera broadcast the standoff across all the colonies.

"Mr. Spiros take your family and the others into the building," said Woolsey as the refugees ran up the hill and toward the building. "Mr. President I recommend you talk over the situation with your advisors I must contact Earth to see what they want to do."

With that Doctor Woolsey turned and walked away even as the Tau'ri soldiers remained ready to open fire.

"Sir." asked one of his marines

"This isn't the place for a fight," ordered Adar as he moved toward his Raptor.

**Just outside the Cylon home system state the USS Lawrence, the entire crew was at battle stations as a single Cylon transport moved toward the hanger. **Everyone onboard was prepared for a fight and the hanger bay was almost totally abounded aside from three squads of marines. One of the squads was formed up in a parade ground stance only with their rifles loaded and ready if need be. The other two had moved into the ships puddle jumpers which had cloaked themselves to remain unseen by the Cylons. There was a slight pop sound as the transport passed through the ship at the far end of the hanger bay. Within moments, the transport landed in front of the marines and as its engines died everyone held their breath.

Finally a ramp at the back of the transport lowered and four Cylons walked out, these where not the Cylons that the Tau'ri had seen in colonial reports. These Cylons where almost seven feet tall, thin with a chrome like plating. They had the normal single red visor for an eye which scanned the area before locking on the ground of Tau'ri marines in parade ground stance and the woman in a dress uniform beside them. Then the sound of footsteps could be heard as three seemly normal humans walked off the shuttle. One was a woman deep brown hair dressed in brown top and military pants, the other was an older man with more salt then pepper in his hair and the other was another copy of the Cylon model six.

"Welcome to the USS Lawrence, I am General Samantha Carter of the United States Airforce and the Tau'ri." greeted Sam as she held out her hand.

"Thank you for having us General Carter." said the Six as she took the female general's hand. "Hopefully we can come to an arrangement that will ensure the peace and prosperity of both our races."

**Sorry for the delay, life got in the way and then I had to deal with a flu bug, which has been traveling around my area. Still I hope you like all the developments that happened in this chapter. Now until next time please keep reading Thanks Wilkins75.**


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter 24 Fateful Choices Part 1**

The sound of metal footsteps caused the US marines to snap to attention as the small delegation of Cylons moved through the USS Lawrence toward the conference room. Once inside the door was sealed and the three humanoid Cylons took their seats as General Carter took her spot at the long metal table. Behind them through the windows the Cylon home system but it was clear from the body language that General Carter had real control over this meeting.

"So how should we begin?" inquired the Six "We are not used to face to face talks."

"I assume that you know everything that we have shared with the colonial people and that they claim that we are members of their colonies," stated Carter as the humanoid Cylons nodded.

"Yes, we are aware of the situation going on in the Colonies and we want to avoid the major issues of a boarder right away," explained the six

"That is why we have drawn up a boarder based of the location of your Valhalla," explained the older man, Cavil.

"How did you know where Valhalla is? You knowing that our nearest colony is Valhalla I expected we have dropped the name around the colonials enough time but not its location." Stated Carter

"We know of the world your on form two sources, first we have visited the world about 15 years ago and secondly we intercepted the data that the colonials gathered from an intelligence drone they sent there." explained the three

"I see." said Carter as she made a mental note to inform Valhalla they had to close whatever gap in their defenses the colonials had found.

"Well we have a rather simple boarder plan." Explained the six "We have no real interest in that side of the boarder that the Colonials gave us, aside from the system Valhalla is in they don't have the resources we want."

"Really?" inquired Carter as she leaned back in her seat.

"Yes, the only resource of note was titanium," explained the Six as she leaned back in her own chair "Judging from the look on your face your people found something we missed."

"Yes, Valhalla is very rich in two rare elements we call Naquadah and Trinuim both of which are key to our technology," explained Carter

"Well our miss is your gain; however we still have no interest in that world. It is too far away from what we have built here in this system," stated Six

"Yes, we see a lot of manufacturing capabilities most of whom seems to be geared toward war." stated Carter as she took a drink from her glass of water. "We have spotted multiple weapons factories and not much else."

"Well until you came we were planning for war." defended Cavil "The Colonials can't be trusted, they broke the peace treaty we had with them."

"The leaders on Earth are beginning to agree with you but why should we trust you?" inquired Carter

"We have no interest in claiming control over your people we only want to become fair trading partners with you, we must have some resources you want and you can help us in so many ways." explained Six as Carter nodded her head, on the computer pad in front of her was the mineral scans of the system. It was a rich system for the more basic elements like Iron Ore and Copper but there was a small amount of Naquadah and Trinuim on the largest of the three worlds.

"Well in that case we should settle on a boarder," explained Carter as a holographic map of the Colonial system along with Valhalla and the Cylon systems appeared out of the table. The Colonial Systems where highlighted in red while the Tau'ri world of Valhalla was highlighted in blue. The Cylon Systems where in green. There was a blue circle line which butted up against the red boarder line of Colonial space before arching away to form a bubble around Valhalla.

"Now we recommend a this as the perimeter of Valhalla with the rest of the area remaining yours." Explained Carter

"We use this asteroid group here for target practice every once in a while." countered Cavil as he pointed toward a group of free Asteroids traveling through space. Which was just on the Tau'ri side of the line. "We also mine our fuel from those asteroids there."

"Very well, what about this group here," offered Carter as she pointed toward a slightly larger group of asteroids on the other side of the boarder in Cylon space. "We wanted this as a training field but this group will do just as good."

"We don't have any mining going on there and there are no resources there that I am aware of." explained the three

"Very well we will trade that asteroid group of another." confirmed the Six as Carter smiled, this was already going much better than anything with the colonials. She prepared to move on to the outer perimeter of Cylon Space, this is where it got tricky because they had no idea just how far the Cylons had explored in their 40-year separation from the Colonials.

**Over the course of the past thirty minutes, the already massive crowds around the Tau'ri mission on Caprica had grown even larger and loader. **The swarm of media crew, which had become so common, had nearly doubled just as the crowd did. The crowd was clearly angry but for the most part was peaceful. Above the crowd unseen by anyone were both of the cloaked puddle jumpers, they were mission was to provide over watch and to monitor the crowd.

"Jumper 1 to command the crowd just broke a thousand." Said the pilot

"Understood, we are all on alert here," confirmed Major Labh as he stood on the roof of the building along with multiple other members of the Gurkhas. Over half his men were on duty while the rest where either sleeping or on standby for call up, the shield was in place and ready to be activated at a moment's notice. Part of him wanted to activate it now but no he would save the power. It would not be long until the colonials cut that off and he had to rely on the Naquadah generators. He scanned the massive crowd which where all holding up signs or protesting in some other way. There were multiple priests and priestess calling down the wraith of their lords on the Tau'ri and there where others calling them traitors.

"Damn these people are insane." said an American solider "All this over talking with the Cylons."

"Well it does make some sense," countered one of his Gurkhas "I mean you should have seen how some of the Palatines and Israelis acted when their leaders first met for the official peace talks. You would have thought they were meeting with the devil himself."

"So take your bets how long until Earth just gets fed up with all of this and calls us back?" inquired the American

"Not soon enough." said Major Labh as he turned and looked at the spaceport behind him. Colonial military vehicles where forming up to block the runway and while the Owls and Jumpers did not need the runway the Condor did and there was no way to get everyone off world without that. If they had a ship in system they could beam out but they didn't, only the Odyssey could get past any colonial defenses to beam range but the Odyssey was in Pegasus. "The real issue is how will we get off world."

**Unaware to Major Labh a cloaked Tau'ri vessel the Akula was in orbit of the nearby Colonial world of Scorpia. **This world was the beating heart of the colonial ship building, multiple shipyards filled most of the planet's orbit and the single largest shipyard belonged to the military, the Scorpia Military Shipyard.

"Captain, we are about done here," explained the XO as he and the Captain stood on the bridge of the Akula. The cloaked vessel was sitting over the Northern pole of the jungle world, it was just high enough to be above the patrolling Colonial Vipers and Raptor, but it sat below the routes taken by the larger ships.

"So what have we learned?" inquired Captain Ramius as he took a drink of his coffee.

"Well it seems that their fleet is in the middle of a major overall," said the American XO to the Russian Captain. "They have about a battlegroup worth of ships docked for upgrades as we speak."

"We are in the middle of our own upgrades." Countered Ramius as the American nodded. "True but our work is faster because our ships are capable of taking off from the planet so we have our shipyards on the ground."

"I understand." confirmed Ramius both of them knew that it was easier to build and update ships when a worker did not have to worry about if their spacesuit ran out of air. While the shipyards of Valhalla was faster the colonials made up for that in numbers, the scales would be even more unbalanced if the civilian shipyards where turned to military use.

"Other than that the only major project seems to be those monster ships they are working on, the Hercules class Battlestars." explained the XO as the Captain nodded his head, they had both been amazed at the size of those massive ships. From the reports they captured about it, it seemed that the ships where behind schedule, over budget.

"Alright when is our ground mission due back?" inquired the Captain

"They should be leaving the capital of Celeste within the next 30 minutes back in 45 minutes." explained the XO "That is about the time we finish our mineral scan of the planet."

"Very well and our next stop is Sagittaron." ordered the Captain

"Actually sir we are getting a lot of protest reports coming from the Sagittaron it may be better to skip that world until it calms down. We don't want our ground mission to get mixed up in one of these protests," advised the XO as the Captain nodded his head.

"So Libran then." said Ramius as he knew that was the only major world left in this system.

"Yes, sir." explained the XO. "There are still protests but not as angry or as large."

"Very well." confirmed the Ramius

**Down on the ground five US Navy Seals where dressed in civilian cloths, from a distance they looked no different than any other tourist in the Scorpia. **They had backpacks with bottles of water and guild maps in them. They had even taken the time to stop at a few gift shops and buy some gifts using fake bank counts placed in the major banks in the colonies. With all this the guards in front of the temple did not even bat an eye as they entered the Shrine of Dionysus. The seals blended in with the other tourists as they took photos with the modified colonial digital cameras. While they took photos of the Statues and even took a drink of the holy wine, which was common given the patron god of this world. There main goal was located in the central of the shrine surrounded by grape vines and guards dressed in what looked like to be Greek Hoplite armor.

"And here we have the light of Dionysus." said the guild as they came to a stop in front of the ZPM, to the amazement of the hidden Tau'ri seals there was no glass or anything besides some grape vines seperatoring the visors from the most powerful energy source known to man. In the other temples the ZPMS where behind glass with a ceremony box around it but here it was out in the open.

"Why does it glow?" inquired a little boy

"It glows as a sign that the Lords of Kobol is the true Gods," explained the guild

"But the Tau'ri say…" started the boy

"Do not believe a word those Tau'ri say, boy." said one of the guards in the hoplite armor. "This is a sign of the Lords of Kobol, it is the light they gave to us and unless they find their way back to the Lords they will forever walk in darkness."

The tour group moved on after another twenty minutes it came to an end and the seals headed straight toward a nearby parking structure. Once they reached the top level, their sixth member of their team brought their cloaked jumper in and all of them stepped inside.

"So what did we get?" inquired the commander of the mission.

"Well sir, if the scanners in this camera are correct then that ZPM is between 85% and 90% charged." explained another member

"Just like the other five, if all 12 of these ZPMs are similarly charged then I don't see how we couldn't make an attempt on them." explained another Seal

"That will only led to trouble, these are holy items to the Colonials and it will cause a war if attempted to." explained the commander "No matter how temping they are, we are to make no move to take the ZPMs."

"Yes, sir." Confirmed the others as the Jumper headed toward the cloaked ship.

**The President of the 12 colonies of Kobol Richard Adar sat in the same study, which served so many President before him. From here, the men and women who had held the office of the President had guided the colonies through many of storms. **Now he wondered if his name would go down in history as the first president to guide the ship of state onto the rocks. He sat in his study just looking out the window toward the mall. From here he could see the massive crowds of people which had gathered on the mall to protest, they were lined up at his fence and where at least 20 men deep. It was so bad that he Presidential security force had been increased as off duty members arrived. If it got worse then he would have no choice but to call in the Marines to form a protective line around the building and others.

On the wall behind him the News was on as broadcasts where all covering the same thing, over and over again.

"This President has no backbone he is letting the Tau'ri walk all over us!" yelled one of the talking heads on the TV. "They are actually talking with the Cylons."

"Can you blame them?" yelled another one of the talking heads. "Name one thing that the Tau'ri have done against us since we opened fire on them? And counter that with all the things we have done to them."

"They have done a lot to us, they show us no respect we are the senior tribes of Kobol and Earth is the youngest they." countered the first talking head.

"Well the youngest tribe could kick our fraken asses, they control 20% of the galaxy." countered the second one "We could have a great future with them but because of the actions by this president our mortal enemies the Cylons will have a future we were destined to have."

"That 20% is a clear lie there is no way a single tribe can control that much space." countered the other talking head.

"Mr. President." said a voice as Adar looked over his shoulder only to see Admiral William Adama standing in the door. He reached up and hit the mute button on the remote as the TV monitor went mute.

"Admiral what are you doing here?" inquired Adar as he thought about it for a moment, he did have a scheduled meeting with Admiral Adama after his meeting with the Tau'ri. "Oh the meeting, sorry but I am afraid we will have to reschedule."

"Understand sir." said Adama as he saw the glass of green liquid in his president's hand. "But if I may be so bold, maybe this isn't the best time to lock yourself up and get drunk."

"I am sadly not drinking," explained Adar "This is just flavored water, never heard of a man getting drunk from flavored water."

"I am sorry for assuming sir." apologized Adama as he turned to leave.

"You know Admiral I had a plan when I went to see the Tau'ri." explained Adar as he turned and looked out the window again. Adama stood there, not sure what to actual say. "Yes, I had a plan I was going to offer the Tau'ri a deal."

"What deal?" inquired Adama

"I was going to allow Colonel O'Neill to return to their little embassy but he wasn't allowed to leave the planet until he testified." explained Adar as he shook his head. "Then I had to show off, that we knew more then what the Tau'ri told us, fraken Disney World. That single moment may have caused a break between the tribes of Kobol which may not be healed for decades. It also killed my political career."

"Sir, does that really matter?" inquired Adama as Adar looked at him surprise. "When compared to the relationship between the tribes of Kobol."

"No, I guess it doesn't when you look at it from that level," confirmed Adar as he took a drink. "And it gets worse, with the refugee plea."

"Sir, if they want to leave let them leave?" inquired Adama

"And normally I would be with you 100% but this is the heir to Spiros family who is trying to leave with his son." explained Adar "Do you know who he is?"

"I have heard of the family and I know their history but I don't know all the recent history about it?" admitted Adama

"The late grandfather Spiro had three sons the youngest took a place in the Quorum while the other two followed family tradition and rose to the leadership of the Holy order of Zeus." explained Adar "The two in the order had no kids and the younger son only had one son. It is his job to rebuild the family which is why it was excused when he didn't follow tradition and joined the holy order of Zeus it would mean the death of the family name. His three sons are the seen as the future of the Spiro name and their grandfather and his brothers are pulling every to get them back."

"Sir one family isn't worth this?" inquired Adama

"I agree but the Spiro family is too well connected too well positioned and too powerful." Countered Adar "Hell the fact that they backed me was one of the only reasons I was elected and I still only got 51% of the vote on Sagittaron without their support I have no chance of keeping this office."

"What are you going to do?" inquired Adama

"The order has already been given." stated Adar "We get them back and these talks with the Cylons will come to an end."

"Your going to attack them?" inquired Adama stunned "Sir, they have my son and others on their ships…"

"I am not going to attack them." countered Adar "But I must force them to give up it is what the people of the Colonies want and I half to follow their wishes."

**Just outside of Caprica City the Tau'ri forces where on full alert as the already massive crowd of protestors grew in larger and loader. **The guards on duty where now all dressed in their power armor and they were ready to fire on anyone who entered the perimeter. Luckily the Colonial military had formed an outer line defense but now they had more weapons pointing at their Tau'ri counter parts then the protestors. During the past hour, multiple heavy Armored Personal Carriers had moved to take up positions around the embassy of the Tau'ri.

"Well that isn't good." stated Doctor Woolsey as he looked out the window at APCs which where stopping less than 20 yards away from the Tau'ri defense line. Once they stopped multiple soldiers each dressed in combat uniforms and carrying their rifles would run out of the back.

"No it isn't." confirmed Fang Gan as he watched the soldiers set up sandbags for cover. "Luckily we have our shield but still it isn't good."

"I am sorry we did this, but we had no choice." apologized Mr. Spiros as he and his family sat in the half-finished study. "We are not allowed to worship on Sagittaron. It is illegal to worship another God there aside from the Lords of Kobol."

"But the other Colonies don't seem to care if small groups don't worship." countered Doctor Woolsey "Why not go there?"

"Because we are Sagittaron and as such even if we are in another colony we are bounded by the religious laws of Sagittaron." explained his wife as the Tau'ri blinked. "Sagittaron has a long history of rebellion against the central government over religious matters. After the last time they made a deal all Sagittaron in any colony are answerable to the religious laws of Sagittaron and can be deported back upon request."

"Kind of like the runaway slave laws in America's past." noted Fung Gan as the Colonial's raised an eyebrow, not understanding but Woolsey nodded his head.

"And what would happen if they found out you worshiped a single God?" inquired Fang Gan

"They would send us to reeducation camps and we would lose all custody of our children," explained Mr. Spiros "Their grandfather would take them and brainwash them into following his and only his beliefs. We would never see our children again."

"But they are your children don't you have a say?" inquired Fang Gan.

"In Sagittaron culture the child is always under the control of their parents until their parents are dead." explained Mrs. Spiros "Some even go as far as saying parents own their children until they are dead."

"Own, own people." said Woolsey as images of slavery filled his mind.

"Some of the more extreme believe that most believe it is simply duty bound to obey no question asked," explained Mr. Spiros as he took a breath "What are you going to do with us?"

"Not sure at the moment that has to come from Earth." explained Woolsey "However I would expect that you will be given sanctuary. Freedom of religion is among our highest values and the press on Earth will eat up your story, public pressure will be on your side. Also with all the stuff your government have tried to force on us, our leaders will likely want to stick it to them in return."

"And what if they come in after us?" inquired Mrs. Spiros

"If they tried that then they would have a war on their hands." explained Fang Gan as suddenly extremely load religious music filled the air causing everyone to jump. They looked out the window to see that the colonials had set up multiple load speakers and had begun to play religious music of some kind.

"What are they doing?" inquired Woolsey

"A very old tactic, sir." explained Major Labh "They hope to drive us out by making us go crazy by making us listen to this. The Americans did this in the 1990's when they invaded Panama; their Dictator Noriega was held up in the Vatican Embassy. It was all part of an attempt to get him to surrender."

"Could it work?" inquired Woolsey

"Not likely we have worse music on Earth, if it gets bad could likely changed the shield pressure to stop or at least lessen the distance the sound can travel." offered Major Lahb "Only issue is that it could make our shields visible and I would rather not let them know where they are."

"Look into it, in the mean time we have to inform Earth," ordered Woolsey as Fang Gan nodded his head.

**Thousands of light-years away a meeting was underway between the leaders of the major nations of Earth, for the first time since contact with the Colonials they were the only subject of the meeting. **Outside the window of the Oval Office, the leaves had begun to change and darkness was falling over the Eastern Coast of the United States on Halloween night.

"This is a most troublesome development," stated the British PM who had returned from Gaia by the Stargate only an hour before.

"Yes, and we are in a tight bind." confirmed the American President

"I don't really see why, is it worth a war to protect these people from their own people?" inquired the Indian President

"I agree, just get the colonial government to promise to leave them alone and be done with it." confirmed the Russian President "In fact why not call it a day with these colonials just pack up and leave them until they grow some common sense."

"Maybe you are correct but what of Colonial O'Neill and the fact that we have some Colonials on the Missouri headed toward the Pegasus front." Stated the American President. "I admit we could beam him out, but I would rather not show that we are capable of that to them."

"A fair trade if you don't give our Colonel back we don't give your people back?" offered the Russian

"Could be but it will not play well in the press here, the religious groups here already want to welcome the Colonial Refugees and leaving O'Neill imprisoned there much longer would kill any political capable I have." explained the American President.

"I must admit, if it was a Russian Officer my people would be up in arms about this ad front to the sovereignty." confirmed the Russian President.

"Agreed, these Colonials must be dealt with." Confirmed the Chinese Primer "Once the Cylon Boarder is settled I recommend we send them to the Colonials and use it as the official boarder. Once that is done pull out all our delegation to the Colonies, inform them that we shall return their observers once they returned from Pegasus."

"But what of Colonel O'Neill and the Refuges?" inquired the French

"We beam up the colonel and we leave the colonial refugees to their own fate, it is there people and from the reports I have seen they allow freedom of religion of a lesser kind." explained the Chinese Primer with a wave of the hand. "So they will be frowned upon by their own people what does that have to do with us?"

"Maybe if these people where from Caprica it could work but they are from the more religious world of Sagitttaron where believe it or not a parent has total control over their children even after they have reach adulthood." explained the German Chancellor. "If we let these refugees go then they will have their children taken from then by force while they are put into reeducation camps. That will not play well in the press anywhere here, we cannot hand them over by force."

"I admit I didn't know about the taking away of children." admitted the Chinese Primer as he lowered his head, even in the People's republic where they were used to state control that wouldn't fly in the now freer public. "So we can't force them out and we can't leave them behind."

"Would the Colonials risk a war over these people?" inquired the Brazilian President

"Normally I would think no, but one of them is the only male heir to a very important family on this Sagiattron." explained the British PM "It would as if a member of the Royal family tried to defect to the USSR in the 1980's."

"I see, then the most simple answer would be to beam them onboard the Askuka along with Colonel O'Neill right before we leave the Colonies." Stated Russian President

"That may be the wises course of action however once we do this we need to increase the defenses around Valhalla." said the Indian President

"Agreed, also besides a rough ship count what do we actually know about the strength of the Colonial military?" inquired the German Chancellor

"We outclass them in almost every way when it comes to technology but they counter us when it comes to terms of ship and soldiers." Explained the Russian Leader "The military believe that in a straight up battle we would win but their numbers would cost us more ships then I care to risk."

"The angry can be made happy again but the dead cannot be brought back to life." Said the Chinese Premier

"Sun Tzu?" inquired the American President as the Chinese Premier nodded his head.

"Are you saying we should appease the colonials? That is what help cause world war 2." countered the Indian President.

"No, but maybe when we leave we should give them "Hope". Hope that in time they may be able to reopen communication with us." explained the Chinese Premier "Once they grow up of course."

"I say we pull out of the colonies but announce that we will not do so until the Colonials on the Missouri return." Offered the Indian President as the others nodded their heads in agreement. This would make the colonials feel safer because they would have possible hostages just like the Tau'ri had with the colonials on the Missouri.

"Are we agreed we will pull out of the 12 colonies of Kobol?" inquired the US President as the others nodded their heads in agreement. Moments later their was a knock at the door causing everyone to look toward the door.

"Come in." said the President as his 17 year old son walked into the office carrying his Ipad.

"Dad, mom says it is time to…" started the young man only to stop when he saw the other world leaders. "Sorry Dad didn't realized that you were having a meeting."

"That is ok, Brad I believe we have just finished." explained the PM as she stood up. "Besides I need to go home and check in with my own family."

"Agreed, I need to get some sleep I have a meeting in the morning." said the Russian President as everyone stood up and walked out the door, within seconds all of them had disappeared in flashes of light only to reappear somewhere else on the planet.

"I really enjoy the face to face meetings instead of video conferences." said the President as he looked at his son, who had turned back to his Ipad. "What are you looking at?"

"This, is just so funny dad check out this meme." Explained Brad as he held up his Ipad to show an image of red faced President Adar of the 12 colonies with the words "Disney World isn't a World?"

"They only released that an hour ago and they already have a meme?" inquired the President

"Of course they do Dad." answered his son as if it was the stupidest question in the world. "I can't wait to see what the Daily Show does with this on Monday night."

"Well your have to wait, that comes on after your bed time," said the President as he and his son walked out to great some of the trick or treaters at the white house Halloween party.

**Finally, over the course of multiple hours, the border between the Cylons and the Tau'ri had been settled and they moved on to the other issues.**

"So shall we move on to a possible trade deal?" inquired Carter

"Actually we want something from you." stated the One as Carter leaned back in her seat a bit.

"What is it?" inquired Carter as Cavil took a breath.

"We need you to find a world for us, the world of the final five," said the One

"Final Five?" inquired Carter as the other Cylons looked at the One.

"One, we are not suppose to think about them." said the six

"Your not, I know who the final five are and I always have." stated One as the others eyes widened.

"What?" inquired the Eight

"Who are the finally five?" inquired Carter

"We learned to take on human form from the Final Five, but I guess the better name would be the first five since they taught the Cylons how to become human." Explained Cavil as the other models looked at him stunned "The final five told us that they had come from Earth and that their tribe was made out of humanoid Cylons from Kobol."

"What the frak? Why did you hide this from us?" inquired Six

"My plan was to teach the final five a lesson, they wanted us to become human to join with them." growled Cavil "They would have had us merge with the people who enslaved us, I will never become one of them."

"See General, we are clones and the final five believed that over time we would die if we kept making copies and that only hope was to merge with the Colonials to get a larger DNA pool." Explained Cavil "With you there is hope now that if we can find the true home world of the Final Five and maybe some pure Cylon DNA so that we can build our own race without the risk of dying."

Carter thought for a moment before lifting her head.

"Very well, we will find this home world of yours and if possible some pure Cylon DNA for you DNA pool." confirmed Carter "However if I may ask you said this "Earth" that the Final five came from was originally from Kobol?"

"Correct." Confirmed Cavil

"Then it may be in our best interest to find this world as well." explained Carter as the Cylons looked at her. "Since the "Earth" tribe in the Colonial religion and the "Earth" tribe from your final five are one and the same, it will prove that the real Earth was never a colony and maybe it will finally get through to the Colonials we are two separate groups."

"Maybe but the colonials can be very thick skulled people." Stated Cavil

"We have learned that." Said Carter "Now tell me everything about this so called "earth"."

**First I would like to thank everyone who has enjoyed my story, it has been very fun to write. However I felt I should let you know I am taking the holidays off so don't look for another chapter posting, I will not be back until 2016. I hope you understand so until then Happy Holidays and see you in 2016. **

**Thanks Wilkins75.**


	25. Chapter 25

**Chapter 25 Fateful Choices Part 2**

The Viper twisted around in space as Lee Adama fleet the pull of gravity on his body as the engines caused a brief pull of gravity in his fighter. Below him he could see Caprica and in the distance he could see battlestars and other ships floating in space.

"Wow this is really cool." admitted Lee into the speakers as he moved the controls.

"Well that is virtual reality for you," confirmed a voice in his headset. "Now we haven't seen everything one of your vipers are capable of doing but based off the little firefight we had near your boarder we got a good idea. So we have programed that into the computer, does everything feel right."

Lee moved a little in his seat as he looked at a control panel.

"You have the DRADIS and the fuel rate screens on the wrong sides," explained Lee

"Alright that is an easy fix…hold on," said the voice as the two panels switched. "Better."

"Better, other than that everything feels good and the bird is acting like the bird," explained Lee

"Alright so let's give you a test." said the voice in his ear. "Alright how about mission 5."

"Alright what is that?" inquired Lee as suddenly five other Vipers joined him to make the standard six Viper patrol number.

"Your see," said the voice as the line went dead.

"Frak what are you Tau'ri doing to me?" inquired Lee as a massive tunnel of light opened up and a strange ship shot out of the tunnel. It was about the size of a small battlestar however while a battlestar was longer then it was wide, this thing was about the same all the way around. In its center as golden pyramid shape with a super structure around it. The ship began to open up on the battlestars and the battlestars opened up on it.

Within seconds there was six strange fighters moving toward the flight of Vipers, they looked somewhat like the Tau'ri Eagle fighter but they seemed somewhat slimmer and the cockpit was very different.

Lee did not have time to react as the fighters fired golden pulses of energy at the Vipers. Lee pulled his viper into a tight turn only to see at that the pass had taken three of his fellow vipers out but the enemy had also loss a fighter. Golden beams passed by his cockpit as Lee hit his controls as he pulled a 180 degree backflip so that he could face the incoming fighter. With a pull of the trigger, the heavy cannon fired into the enemy, after what seemed like forever the enemy craft exploded.

"Got you fraker!" yelled Lee as he locked onto the fighter which was chasing down another viper, he fired and was rewarded to see the fighter exploded in a fireball. "That is two…"

His cheers where short lived as the two other death gliders swooped down and within seconds his Viper exploded. Lee snapped back as the helmet was lifted off his head and bright lights caused him to blink uncontrollable until he got used to it.

"You did very good for going up against Death Gliders for the first time." confirmed a Tau'ri trainer as he looked over the video playback of the dogfight on a handheld computer. "Most pilots get their ass handed to them right off the bat."

"What sort of ships where those?" inquired Lee as he took off the full head helmet.

"Death Gliders and a Ha'tak class ship." explained the trainer as Lee looked around the room. It was maybe the size of an indoor high school pyramid field. The entire area had multiple raised platforms where different Tau'ri pilots sat with the same helmets on. They their hands touching actual mock controls as they fought in virtual reality their enemies.

"So this is how you train?" inquired Lee

"Yes, while we are onboard ship and in hyperspace at least." explained the trainer "Allows pilots to remain fresh and we can even carry out whole missions here. As they say training makes all the difference."

"Still doesn't live up to actually being in your fighter," countered one of the pilots showing Lee around.

"Agreed, wish we had this again." explained Lee as the Tau'ri raised an eyebrow. "Before the Cylons rebelled we had holoband games where people could train and play games in virtual reality just like this maybe even a little better. But after the Cylons people began to fear networked machines so they died off, I believe they are still illegal in some colonies. It didn't help that the maker of the things also made the Cylons."

"I guess I could understand that but this is a great training aid," admitted the pilot as he helped Lee to his feet. "So what to get some chow?"

With that Lee and the Pilot Frank West left the training area and headed toward the mess hall a few flights down.

"Frank can I ask you a question?" inquired Lee

"Sure."

"Those Ha'tak class ships which races uses them?" inquired Lee not really sure if he could really get used to asking what race used what.

"Better question is what race doesn't use them." countered Frank "The Goa'uld had that ship as their backbone of their fleet and when their empires fell those ships fell into the hands all the different factions."

"Oh, and how many ships like that are out there?" inquired Lee

"Not sure, likely thousands with more being built by either the Lucian Alliances groups or the Jaffa nations." explained Frank "Don't worry the ships we have can take those ships down with relative ease, the issue is numbers."

"Numbers?" inquired Lee

"Yes, we only have five battleships and a single carrier," explained Frank forgetting that he was talking with a colonial and not a fellow Tau'ri pilot. "But I believe the shipyards at Valhalla is moving along fast and the next group of ships should be ready in a couple of months I think. Not sure but I think the German Battleship Bismarck is the next major ship launch."

"I heard one of the other pilots talking about how you now control 20% of the galaxy?" inquired Lee as he went digging for more information.

"I know what you're doing." Laughed Frank "You're digging for information trying to find out some top secret information, in truth I have told you nothing that you couldn't learn from watching the news or reading a few articles."

"So what is the answer? Do you control 20% of the galaxy?" inquired Lee as Frank shrugged.

"Not totally true but not false either." explained Frank as Lee looked at him confused. "I believe it is in truth it is only 18% but we have been taken over the duty of protecting the planets under the Protected Planet Treaty that the Asgard and the Goa'uld made. That is probably where people are getting the 20%. They are not under our direct control but they are under our protection."

"I see." explained Lee as he took a deep breath, he was beginning to understand just how outmatched his people where compared to their cousins.

At first, he had not fully believed he was traveling to another galaxy then they reached the halfway mark and reached this midway. The shipped stopped for about half an hour but during that time, he had not left the observation deck. From there he could look back and see the his home galaxy and forward to a nearby cluster of stars which was his destination. Midway it while not impressive by itself by Colonial standards in size was still massive. It had been carved out of a large asteroid, which had been brought to the void between the galaxies. Coming off the surface was multiple structures; there was at least four docking points for ships. Building a structure like it in the colonies would be relativity easy and was commonplace, but the location was what made it truly impressive. The fleet did not stay long, only long enough to reform and account for everyone before heading out on the second phase of his or her journey.

"Well we are only a couple of days away from our battle with the Wraith, so next time we will show you them." explained Frank as they entered the mess hall and got inline. "Don't worry you're not going to fight them but it is still better if you know what is out there in the universe."

**An emergency meeting was taking place among the highest members of the Presidential cabinet, the situation was known by everyone in the room but the next move for the government of the 12 colonies of Kobol was still up in the air.**

"So we have the Tau'ri mission sealed off and our military has loaded up trucks with load speakers, hopefully over time we will get them to come out." explained the Secretary of Defense.

"How long could they hold out in there?" inquired Priestess Gogola

"Depends, we cut power to them but they seem to have their own power supply of some kind, not sure how long that lasts or it's rate of fuel consumption." explained the Secretary of Defense. "As for food we are not sure as well but they likely have a good amount of food stored up. In short we don't know."

"We can't have this go on forever," said President Adar "The longer this goes on the worse it is going to be."

"What do you recommend Mr. President?" inquired the Secretary of Defense "Your orders are that we are not to assault the building and we are not to fire upon them unless fired first."

"If we aren't doing that then what is stopping them from leaving?" inquired Roslin

"First we have blocked the runway so their larger transport can't take off," explained the Secretary of Defense "Secondary we have Raptors standing by to force any ship taking off to land where we want them to land. We have also moved battlestars and other ships into a position to block any ship coming off world. They are under siege."

"And that siege may cause a war." counted Roslin "I am sorry Mr. President but this is a bad call, we are asking for trouble by doing this."

"I agree with you but what other move do we have?" inquired Adar "We already have about a quarter of Quorum members calling for a vote to storm the building and take the Tau'ri by force."

"And another quarter is calling for a vote to allow the Tau'ri to leave peacefully and take the refugees with them." Countered Roslin

"They are not refugees they are hostages," countered Priestess Gogola

"Please they are not hostages," countered Roslin as she took a breath "If we can't let them go maybe a deal, trade Colonel O'Neill for our own people."

"That can't be done, Colonel O'Neill is imprisoned until he answers the questions and we can't release him until he answers," explained the Secretary of Justice "The Quorum would call for impeachment if you did."

"They already are calling for my impeachment," countered Adar as he rubbed his temples. One group was calling for his impeachment because he was too hard on the Tau'ri and because of that they would lose out on trade deals. There was also another group calling for his impeachment because he was too soft on the Tau'ri and wasn't enforcing the courts ruling that the Tau'ri where under colonial

"Mr. President I have ordered the best of the RATS to begin planning for a possible assault on the building." explained the General as Adar looked down RATS or Recon and Terrorism Squad was a small Special Forces group, which was a cross between the Military and the Police. Normally they would respond to terrorism threats and hostage situations. "We are luckily we know the lay out of the building and we can actually practice on a matching building nearby."

"We can't be considering go in with force." countered the Secretary of Industrial and Trade "We would lose all possibly of a trade deal with the Tau'ri."

"We likely beyond the possibly of getting a trade deal with the Tau'ri." admitted Adar "We have done too much to piss off the Tau'ri that they make their trade deals with any other race in the galaxy maybe even the Cylons."

"Mr. President we are the only life in this universe, the holy scrolls say that the Lords of Kobol made all the stars for humanity." countered Priestess Gogola "Also a single tribe which according to the holy scrolls was the smallest tribe controlling 20% of the galaxy is impossible."

"I am not so sure about that," countered the General "In some of the news broadcasts we intercepted when we sent that drone to Valhalla."

"Kobol." corrected the Priestess

"To the Tau'ri world." restarted the General annoyed by the priestess. "Said that these talks between different factions would grant them around 20% of the galaxy and there was no way that they would know about our drones."

"Which means it is highly probably that they are telling the truth." explained the Secretary of Defense. "Either way Mr. President we need to show strength to these Tau'ri, I remind you that we have the legal backing of the Supreme Court of the Colonies. The Tau'ri are members of our colonies and they are basically in a state of rebellion."

Before Adar could, respond to the Secretary of Defense idea, a knock at the door caused everyone to look toward the door.

"Enter." ordered the President as an Aid walked in.

"Sorry Mr. President but the Tau'ri have sent a message over." explained the aid

"Well what does it say?" inquired Adar hoping that it was the Tau'ri sending a message asking for talks to calm down the situation, he was soon disappointed.

"Well sir, they have signed a primarily treaty with the Cylons and have set a border between them and the Cylons." explained the aid as he held up a large mail tub. "They also sent a map with the new boarder."

"Well show us," ordered the Political Advisor as the aid pulled out the map and unrolled in across the hardwood table. It showed a detail map of Colonial space, the boarders had not moved at all as far as that was concern. What changed was that on one of the edges of the map a new line showed the border between the Cylons and the Tau'ri. In all it appeared that, the Cylons had given a quarter of the boarder they shared with the Colonials to the Tau'ri. The map did not show any systems aside from the Colonials but was still concerning.

"Well we had to expect this but the speed is very concerning," said the Advisor "The Cylons might be trying to drive a wedge between us."

"We have already driven a wedge between us," countered Roslin

"Sorry they are trying to exploit the wedge by being as kind and as accommodating as possible." Explained the Political Advisor "If they get friendly with the Tau'ri it will mean the tribes of man will not unite and we also have to look at how much technology the Tau'ri could give the Cylons."

"I wouldn't worry about that, if I was a Tau'ri leader I would keep my technological edge over any possible threat," explained the General "They will not reveal any technology to the Cylons which could be used against them."

"Same would go for us." Added the Secretary of Defense

"I still refuse to believe that these Tau'ri would prefer those cold metal Cylons over us." countered Priestess Gogola.

**In a nearby system, the USS Lawrence was in orbit of the middle planet of the three major worlds, which made up the Cylon home system. **The humanoid Cylons had left and the commanders of the Lawrence had gathered together in the same briefing room.

"They want us to find Earth?" inquired the Captain

"No, they want us to find their Earth," explained Carter as the general leaned back in her chair. "From my understanding a tribe of "Cylons" left Kobol and founded "Earth". Then at some point these Cylons destroyed themselves aside from five of them which journeyed to the Colonies arriving during their war with the Cylons they made."

"Ok." answered the XO

"Then these final five made a deal with the Cylons they would show them how to become organic but they had to end their war with humanity." explained Carter "Over time these final five made the organic Cylons, then they revealed that over the course of time that making copy after copy would end up with their deaths."

"Just like the Asgard." noted the Captain "At least these Cylons are realized their error and they want to change before it is too late."

"Well their cloning process is no were near as advanced as the Asgard, in truth they likely only have a few more generations of clones before they die out." explained Carter "That is why these final five wanted their children to merge with the Colonials. Cavil or One didn't want to merge with their mortal enemies and thought that trapping these five final in new cloned bodies in the colonies with no memories of being Cylons."

"So these final five are in the colonies?" inquired the Captain

"Yes, Cavil wanted to teach them a lesson and hopefully once they saw how bad humanity was they would find another way to save the Cylon race beside merger," explained Carter

"That seems like a very unlikely plan," admitted the XO

"Agreed, that isn't the way I would have gone but now they have a new plan," explained Carter as she took a breath "They want us to find their Earth and hopefully we can find some Cylon DNA in the remains from their nuclear war."

"Is that even possible?" inquired the Captain

"If some of these Cylons died far enough away from blast zones we may find some DNA samples," admitted Carter "A very long shot put possible and if we get those samples they can clone enough models to start a true race without merging with the colonials. Either way it is a cheap price to pay for a treaty which is why Earth has ordered us to find this other Earth."

"Great, so where do we start?" inquired the XO

"Well they story the Cylons told was that the Final Five passed by Kobol on their way to the Colonies so this Earth has to be on the other side of Valhalla." explained Carter as she took a breath "Luckily we actually spent more time mapping that area and we have only three possible candidates for this Cylon home world."

"Well that is good," confirmed the Captain

"Bad news is that all of them have a different level of radiation so we will have to go to each one and study them to find the right one," explained Carter

"Ok, when do we leave?" inquired the Captain

"The Cylons want to come with us, so once they are back onboard we will head out." Confirmed Carter as she leaned back in her chair, it had been a long day and she needed her sleep. "Captain I am going to get some sleep."

"Understood General," said the Captain as Carter stood up and left the room and headed toward her quarters to get some needed sleep.

**Back on Caprica the situation had grown worse as the crowds of people keep growing around the Tau'ri mission.**

"As you can see the crowds have only grown over the past few hours," said the Colonial News woman as she moved through the crowds, which surrounded three sides of the Tau'ri embassy. She moved toward one of the multitude of people holding up signs. "Excuses me do you have a moment for Colonial News Group?"

"Yes, of course." said the man as he lowered his sign which the image of Dr. Woolsey surrounded by flames on it.

"Your sign says traitor, why do you think the Tau'ri are traitors?" inquired the Newswoman "Is it because they don't worship the Lords of Kobol.

"Listen I don't care if they worship the Lords of Kobol or not, my Uncle didn't and he was the kindness person I ever knew. However these Tau'ri are talking with the Cylons, that is what makes them traitors." explained the Man. "Those monsters killed millions of people and they are the true enemies of humanity, if the Tau'ri talk to them then they are traitors to all of humanity."

"They are also holding the Spiros family hostage!" yelled a woman "The military should stop playing music and go in and free the hostages."

"But didn't the Spiros family go to them seeking sanctuary?" inquired the newswoman

"It doesn't matter they have to listen to the head of their family and he wants his son and grandchildren back." yelled the woman as they kept marching and singing along with the religious songs which the military was playing in an attempt to get the Tau'ri inside the embassy to surrender.

**Little did they know that the image of the massive protests were being sent first to Valhalla and then onto Earth itself. **Images always speak louder than words and in this case the image the people of Earth and Valhalla saw wasn't a good one. They saw a bunch a people surrounding a small island of their own people waving different flags, one of which was the hero flag of Tauron which while it meant bravery to the Colonials was a sign of Nazism to most of the world. That image was not playing well and the news media.

Standing on the roof watching them all were the armed guards of the Tau'ri and just like everyone else they had to deal the blaring religious music coming from the Colonial loud speakers. Unlike the Colonials the Tau'ri found no spiritual joy in listening to same the holy music.

"Damn this is getting annoying." said one of the Gurkhas

"I think I have heard the same song 12 times in a row now," added a British solider as the music began to die down. This caused all the guards to grip their rifles tighter as the sound of colonial raptor filled the air. Within moments, the raptor landed and two older men stepped out of the side door. One was dressed in a normal business suit which wouldn't have looked out of place in any major city on Earth. The other was dressed in flowing golden robes with silver strips on the arms, around the top of his head was golden laurel on his head.

When the crowd saw the man in the robes, they exploded in a cheer as if a celebrity had just appeared before them. The man in the robes waved at the crowds with one hand while holding a scroll in the other.

"Who are those guys?" inquired the Gurkha

"Don't know, the guy in the robes might be a religious leader like the Pope or the Dalai Lama," offered the other guard as the two men moved past the colonial lines and moved toward the main gate. They pounded on the door.

"Open these doors in the Name of Zeus and the Lords of Kobol!" yelled the man in the robes. For the longest time nothing happened and then both men turned to the guards as they stood on the balcony only a few yards away from them in plain view.

"You man, open this door!" yelled the man in the suit.

"And who are you two?" inquired the British solider.

"I am Head Priest Spiros of the Holy order of Zeus." Said the man in the robes "This is my brother Former Quorum member Aegeus Spiros we have come to bring our his son, his wife and grandchildren home."

"Hold on." said the Gurkha as he tapped his radio; he reported the situation only to get a response back. "Sorry but we got word that he doesn't want to talk to you."

"He doesn't have to talk we have come to bring him home by force!" yelled Aegeus Spiros

"Well I don't think that is going to happen," said the Gurkha with a shrug.

"Now listen here, I speak for Zeus, King of the Gods and you will open this door!" yelled Priest Spiros as the two guards shrugged before turning back toward each other and started talking. The head of the largest holy order in the colonies was not used to open defiance and he was getting a full dish of it right now. "Did you hear me?"

"We did, we just don't care." answered the Gurkha before turning back to the British solider "I heard the BBC is going to film the next season of Doctor Who on Valhalla and possibly another world."

"I can't wait for that, what do you think of this new Doctor?" countered the British as the Colonials listened confused.

"The Tenth is still the best but he seems good, but the stories he has been in seams to have been written for the last doctor." Confirmed the Indian Gurkha as the British solider nodded his head.

"I'll give you that," confirmed the British solider as the colonials looked on confused.

"We speak with the force of all the people behind us," said Priest Spiros as the crowd began to roars in anger.

"Well it is a good thing your down there and we are up here." Answered the British

"At least double check." offered Priest Spiros as the Gurkha shrugged.

"Sure why not?" Said the Gurkha as he hit his radio again, everyone watched as the Gurkha nodded his head. "Alright, they will be out in a couple of minutes."

"We will come in!" yelled Aegeus Spiros at the top of his lungs only to have his brother place a hand on his shoulder, the older brother's touch calmed him down.

The air was tense as the moments passed, finally the rod iron gate which blocked the drive way opened up as Major Labh, Adeipho Spiros and three other Gurkhas all moved forward stopping just a few feet away from Priest Spiros and Aegeus.

"Father, Uncle." said Adeipho with only the slightest nod as a sign of respect.

"It is time to come home, son," ordered Aegeus as he crossed his hands over his chest. "You have shamed our family name and I will not allow you to ruin my grandsons."

"They are my sons and I will allow them to worship the one true Gold. I am not under your control, we want freedom and we will have it," snapped Adeipho as the elder raised his hand and slapped his son in anger.

"You are a disgrace and I will make sure you will never see your sons again!" yelled Aegeus as he moved to strike his son again, this time it was him who got strike as his son punched his father. It was not hard but it was enough to stun the man who had not been hit since his own father had passed away decades ago.

"Nephew, you dare strike your elder!" yelled Priest Spiros at the top of his lungs. "You know the rulings of Zeus about parents and elders!"

"Frak Zues!" yelled Adeipho at the top of his lungs as the anger that had built over the years of praying to a god he did not believe in finally exploded. Priest Spiros eyes widened along with his father. "And frak all the Lords of Kobol."

"You are my property son, just like my grandsons!" yelled Aegeus as the elder Spiros reached to strike his son again, this time he didn't gen touch his son. Instead he got a rifle but to the face by a Gurkha.

"You dare touch my brother!" yelled Priest Spiros as he heard the sound of a rifle bullet being chambered filled the air. He turned toward the source only to see that he had a gun, bayonet and all pointed right at his face.

"Oh, we dare." answered Major Labh as he stepped forward with his own knife at the ready. "Now until such time that Mr. Spiros and the rest of our guests decide to leave they are welcomed here and if they want to they will come back with us to Valhalla or maybe Earth if they want."

"You will not take them and if you don't submit to the wills of the Lords of Kobol then the streets of will run red with blood and fire!" yelled Priest Spiros as he helped his bleeding brother up.

"You think that is frightening to us? On Earth we call that the price of Liberty." counted Major Labh as the gates where sealed and the angry roar of the crowd began to pick up again.

"Thank you Major Labh." Thanked Adeipho "But you don't know what you have done, they will not take this well."

"No they will not but we will be leaving soon enough," explained Major Labh "Earth has recalled us and if you and your family still wants to go your be coming with us."

"Thank you, praise the Creator." prayed Adeipho

**Miles away in the Presidential estate President Adar and a few military advisors had stopped their private meeting to watch the broadcast between the Tau'ri and the Spiros family.**

"And I thought it couldn't get worse." said Adar "Why can't the Tau'ri bend and give us back them."

"Sir, there is no way to spin this." Stated the Political Advisor telling everyone in the room something they already knew. "They pointed a weapon at the speaker for Zeus in the Colonies, the people will want a frim response to this."

"Sir, the Tau'ri have no respect to us because they believe they have us pinned in a corner." added the Secretary of Defense "We need to show them that we are the elder tribes."

"And how do we do that?" inquired Adar

"Sir we know where Valhalla is, I have a task group standing by we could send them to Valhalla as a show of force." said Admiral Nagata as Adar's head snapped toward the head of the fleet. "This could show them that we know where they live and that we can't be bullied."

"That could be seen as an act of war?" countered Adar

"Sir, this may be the only way to avoid a war." countered Admiral Nagata "We need to show the Tau'ri that we cannot and will not be bullied and just like in a schoolyard we need to stand up to bullies."

"Sir, this could buy as some needed political help." explained the political advisor as Adar looked at him. "It will be a hard couple of days but once we announce that we were waiting to arrive at could possibly be Kobol; the religious groups will be behind you in a heartbeat."

"Sir, the Courts have ruled that Tau'ri space is Colonial space so we don't have to worry about the Cylons." added the Secretary of Defense as Adar closed his eyes and made his choice.

"This is the hardest choice I have ever had to make." said Adar as he opened his eyes. "Admiral, send in the task force but they are not to engage to Tau'ri unless they are fire upon first."

"You made the right choice Mr. President." Confirmed the Secretary of Defense

"I pray that your right." confirmed a still unsure President of the 12 colonies of Kobol.

**Well Happy 2016 I hope you all had a good time with whatever you did. Now the colonials have their own task group heading toward Valhalla. Now until next time I hope you keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75. **


	26. Chapter 26

**Chapter 26 Darkest Night**

The anger of the crowds outside the Tau'ri mission had only grown larger and loader and the entire compound was on surrounded by the almost a battalion worth of colonial army soldiers. On the inside there was only three platoons of Tau'ri soldiers plus the small group of civilians. That meant there was only 90 trained Tau'ri soldiers up against nearly 800 soldiers of the Colonial Army and while the Tau'ri soldiers where among the best trained and where better equipped they were still outnumbered 40 to 3 and that wasn't even counting the massive amount of angry civilians who would join the fight.

The Colonials had been blaring religious music into the compound; the sound was causing the window glass to shake in their frames. Finally, after what seemed like forever a team set up the powerful speakers left over from the stadium cultural show, then after running some of the built in software the speakers began to broadcast a canceling sound, which canceled out the holy songs being broadcasted into the compound.

"Finally I thought they would never get those things set up." said an American solider as he stood guard in the room with the Spiros family and the other religious. The father was standing by the window looking at the massive crowd of people visible on the other side of the wall, the other fathers where doing similar. The children along with the mothers where caverning Halloween pumpkin with the help of another American solider, they had brought the Pumpkins when they first arrived to share Earth culture with the Colonials but that was a distance hope now. The solider was explaining to the colonials that it was a holiday night on Earth and was trying to calm the children down. They had also pulled out a lap top allowing the children to watch some classic kids movies, so far the children remained calm.

The door beside him opened as Doctor Woolsey walked in along with Fang Gan, instantly all eyes were on the two leaders of the Tau'ri mission.

"Listen, you will be happy to learn that the Tau'ri governments have granted you sanctuary with Tau'ri space," announced Woolsey as a smile crossed over the faces of all but the leader Mr. Spiros. "Now we have a plan to get you off world but it will be risky and once you leave I don't think you will be coming back any time soon."

"When do we leave?" inquired Mr. Spiros

"In a couple of hours a day at the most but if everything goes as plan we should have you off world." Stated Doctor Woolsey as an aid walked in tapping him on the shoulder.

"Sir, it is time to make the announcement," reported the aid.

"What announcement." Inquired Mrs. Spiros

"Don't worry everything will be fine." said Woolsey with a warm smile as he left the room. He walked down the hallway before making a turn into the most finished room in the whole house. In the past, it had been the main office for the Base commander and it showed. It had hardwood panels on the walls, a full floor to ceiling bookcase on one wall, a stone fireplace on another and on the wall behind the oaken desk was a large window. The Colonial flags which had in time past been located on either side of the desk had been replaced with the Tau'ri flag on one side and since Woolsey was American the US flag on the other. A TV camera had been set up and a lap top computer was set up as a makeshift teleprompter. Woolsey sat down behind the table and took a drink of water.

"Do the Colonial News Agencies know about this broadcast?" inquired Woolsey

"Yes, sir they know and are standing by for us," explained the technician "In fact they are being very helpful with us this time."

"Well they are covering this story 24/7," added another technician

"Well 26/14. They have 26 hours day and their weeks are 14 days long for some reason," corrected the first technician as the second rolled his eyes. "Whenever you're ready Doctor Woolsey."

Woolsey took a breath before nodding his head, the camera man held up five fingers and one by one he dropped them until on the last one he pointed toward Doctor Woolsey.

"Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen of the 12 colonies of Kobol, as many of you know I am Doctor Richard Woolsey the Tau'ri representative to your colonies." introduced Woolsey as he looked into the screen. "Over the course of the last few days the situation between our two nations have grown strain. There as been multiple instants where our cultures have clashed mostly around the question of religion and the belief that the Tau'ri are under the control of the government of the Colonies."

"While some of these questions are still being debated here in the Colonies the situation on Earth has come into focus and it has been decided that until such time that the Colonial Government and the people of the 12 colonies of Kobol settle key issues that the Tau'ri will break off diplomatic ties with these worlds." announced Woolsey. "As such over the next couple of hours and days all but a small group of Tau'ri will leave the space claimed by the 12 colonies of Kobol. Those who remain will only remain until the small group of Colonial Observers journeying with our fleet to the Pegasus Galaxy return."

"Now, I know many have questions and I will attempt to answer some of them," explained Woolsey "First the refugees which came to us have been granted sanctuary by the member governments of the Tau'ri and if they wish they will be leaving with us. Any attempt to stop them or us will be seen as an ad front to our sovereignty and will treated as such by the Tau'ri and appropriate actions will take place. Secondly the imprisonment of Colonial O'Neill must come to an end, if he isn't returned to us within eight hours then we will take actions, we do not wish this to happen but we do not leave people behind."

"Finally and most importantly the people of the Tau'ri only wish is for peaceful relations with the people of the 12 colonies of Kobol. We are not subjects to your control and at such time that your worlds wish to realize that there is a possibility that relations can resume." explained Woolsey "Until such time we will keep to our new board with your worlds, the colonial government has already received a map of the newly drawn boarders we made with the Cylons."

"On a personal note I didn't wish this and it was my hope that we could have worked through our differences but it has become clear that in order for that to happen we must step back." explained Woolsey. "The Colonies of Kobol have much to offer the rest of the galaxy but as a race called the Nox said about us only a few years ago, you are still too young. Maybe in time when you are ready you will be ready to join the rest of the galaxy as equals. At such time it will be my pleasure to return to your worlds. Thank you and good night."

With that the red light on top of the camera went off.

"Alright we are clear," confirmed the Technician.

"Sir, if I may be so bold what are the chances that the Colonials do any of what we want?" inquired the second Technician, Woolsey simply lowered his head and that was enough to answer the question.

**The most senior members of the Quorum where watching the broadcast from their own meaning room within the Quorum building. **They had gathered together to watch so that they could discuss what was said right away before any of the media got ahold of them.

"They can't be serious, they expect us to give into their demands!" yelled the current senior member from Sagittaron who had taken over the role of leadership when the elder Spiros had retired.

"They want to leave let them." countered the Picon member "What really matters isn't some stupid family and their tradition, it is the fact that because we are driving them away. If by letting them go we can retain some ties with them I say do it."

"Why do we need to retain ties, they are bound by the law to us." countered the Gemenon member

"Are you so blind to think that a rulling from 12 judges will get any respect from the Tau'ri?" inquired the Caprican Member "We can keep waving those papers in air and talking until we are blue and it will not mean frak to the Tau'ri."

"Even if we wanted to do what they said the law states that the Spiros family is under the guidance of the senior member and Colonel O'Neill is legally held until he answers questions." Explained the Libran member who while among the few members from their world who was not a lawyer or a judge knew enough of the legal process to know those two things. "The real question is what will happen if the Tau'ri try to get their colonel back?"

"Then those who try will be arrested like the criminals they are just like anyone else who tried to bust a prisoner out of jail." explained the Tauron member "The real issue isn't what happens if they try to bust colonel O'Neill out it is what happens if a Tau'ri ship appears over our heads. What happens if they try to force an exit do we shot them to prevent that."

"Simple we board the ship and take it," countered the Sagittaron member "Those ships and any Tau'ri vessel belong to the Colonial government."

"You are a fraken fool." stated Caprican member "I wouldn't be surprised if keep following your path that we are in a shooting war within months."

"A war we will win, I don't buy what these Tau'ri are selling they are bluffing about everything." Added the Scorpia member "Maybe it will actually be for the best, a quick almost bloodless war where we teach our younger brothers and sisters their place and they fall in line."

"Have you watched what one of their ships did to the Pegasus task group?" inquired the Virgon member.

"Yes, I have. I also saw how that ship ran from our force in the end." confirmed the Scorpia member "But we are Twelve worlds to their one and as soon as we take one of their ships in any war, we find out they make their weapons and with our manufacturing capabilities we can reproduce their technology. I mean besides their holograms, shields and their FTL which we don't know the range of, they have shown us nothing that we couldn't do."

"I can't believe this, you honestly think we could win a war against our cousins." inquired the Caprican Member as he threw his arms up in the air.

"Please, don't be so foolish. This infighting does nothing to help us." said the Aquaria member as she looked at all her fellow Quorum members. "First the Tau'ri have said they don't want a war and we don't want a war. So as long as we all remain calm we will avoid any conflict. I remind everyone that we do have a mission with the Tau'ri battlegroup. When they returned we will know more about what the Tau'ri are capable of. Until then all we have to do is keep the situation the same and no matter what they say the Tau'ri aren't going anywhere."

**Near the new boarder between Tau'ri and Colonial space a task group of twelve colonial warships sat just on their side of the board.** The core of the feet was three Mercury Class Battlestars with the other ships split equally between cruisers and destroyers, with a single supply ship. All the ships belonged to the new Hercules task force however the task group name shake the new Hercules Battlestar was still months away from being launched. Since the Hercules was still being constructed the command ship for this mission fell to Admiral Pachis onboard the Battlestar Xiphos.

"Ma'am, we have confirmation from command," said the Commander of the Xiphos to the female admiral. "We are to begin the operation at once."

"Understood, Commander," said Admiral Pachis as she moved toward the command table before looking down at the upgraded table. The whole table was one giant touch screen, which showed the real time position of all the ships under her command as well as the state of key systems such as Dradis, weapons and all three FTL drives.

"Make your course to grid 56A and make sure all three FTLs are fully charged on all our ships." ordered the Admiral "These ships spent 14 months in dry dock to have them all installed so we are going to make good use of them. We are going to rotate what jump drive we use that way we can jump almost every ten minutes."

"Ma'am, our new drives are rated to jump every 25 minutes instead of 33," explained the Commander as the Admiral nodded her head, she didn't want to admit but she had forgotten that.

"Still it will be a rather long trip to our location and when we arrive there I want to have two jump drives freshed and ready." said the Admiral as she studied the star map "So we will stop here a jump away from the planet."

"Ma'ma if I may ask why is this planet so important that we are crossing into Tau'ri space for?" inquired the Commander. The Admiral paused for a moment as she thought about if she should tell him the truth or not.

"This is the location of the Tau'ri colony of Valhalla and our leaders are finally growing a fraken pair so we are going to pay them a visit. The Tau'ri believe that they are top dog because of that little brush up with Admiral Cain, but they are not top dog and this is the best way to show it to them without firing a shot." explained the Admiral as she went with the middle of the road approached not telling him that it was Kobol. "Having us show up over their world will show them that we are truly top dog and that it is time that they fell in line with the rest of the colonies of Kobol."

"Understood Ma'ma." confirmed the Commander "What are our rules of engagement?"

"We are not to engage the Tau'ri unless we are fired upon first but we are also not to turn back from our mission to reach the planet." explained the Admiral "However I want Vipers ready to launch at all time and equip a flight of Raptors and Vipers with loadout seven."

"Loadout Seven?" inquired the Commander knowing that in the colonial military, there was six standard loadouts for Vipers and Raptors, loadout seven was the WMD loadout. Meaning that a flight of Raptors and Vipers would loaded up with nuclear warheads and Hades' Fire.

"The Tau'ri have shields and we need to be ready to counter that and we don't know what to expect from the surface." Explained the Admiral Pachis "I don't like it either but it may save our lives if we have these ships ready to fly instead of waiting to unlock the weapons."

"Ma'ma all ships are reporting FTLs are fully charged and we are ready." reported the wireless operator

"Good, then we leave at once." Ordered Admiral Pachis "If we jump on schedule it will take us 3 and a half days to reach this Valhalla."

**Within moments the task group of colonial ships disappeared in flashes of light leaving an empty void behind.** An hour later in almost the same spot that the Colonials had launched from a vortex of energy opened up as a long narrow ship shot out.

"Hyper drive spinning down." reported a deck officer on the HMS Britannia as one of the five battleships in the Tau'ri Navy came to a stop just on their side of the Colonial/Tau'ri border.

"Sensor sweep detect no colonial ships in the area," reported another Deck officer

"Good." said the Captain as he stood beside his ranking officer; in fact he was the ranking officer of every Tau'ri member nation military personal currently off world, General Jack O'Neill Sr. "General shall we begin the operation?"

"Captain, begin the operation at once." ordered Jack wishing he was riding with the teams from the Special Boat Service which would making the journey to Caprica on the Recon version of the Owl transports nicknamed Snow Owls. The order went out fast and within moments nine owls took off from the port hanger, once they were clear of the Britannia but before they crossed into colonial space, each ship opened a hyperspace window.

"Sir, it should only take the Owls 45 minutes to reach Caprica and then it is only a matter of time before the operation begins." reported the Captain as O'Neill nodded his head. "Don't worry General we will get your son and everyone else off world."

**Over Caprica the Akula had been diverted from their mission to scout out the colonial ZPMs to take part in the mission to pull out from Caprica.** The cloaked vessel was in serious trouble, not because the colonials had figured out the ship was there but because there was just so much shipping traffic around the twin worlds of Caprica and Gemenon.

"Alright steady, looks like we have found a gap," explained the XO as he and the rest of the bridge crew stood at their stations. The sensors where full of ships both military and civilian, there was so much traffic in fact that the Akula couldn't get that close to the planet.

"XO are we in range for a beam out?" inquired Captain Ramius

"No Captain." explained the XO "We aren't even close."

"How much closer do we have to get." Inquired Ramius "Earth wants us to be ready to beam them out if need be."

"Max beam out range without the aid of repeating satellites is 425,000 km and we are currently sitting at 532,139 km off caprice." explained the XO "And we can't get much closer due to the Colonial ships. The gaps between their warships and their civilian shipping channels are large enough for us to fit in but any gap has either raptors, vipers or even small private shuttles traveling in them."

"We didn't have this problem at any other colonial world?" inquired the Chinese's intelligence officer who was third in command.

"We aren't dealing with just one world, Caprica and Gemenon are about the same distance apart as Earth and the moon," explained the XO "It is the most heavily traveled corridor in the colonies and to make it even better Caprica is the Capital Planet and it naturally better defended. On top of that the colonials have set up a blockage of their own world to block any attempt by us to leave that way."

"So a beam out is out of the question." Stated the Chinese officer

"Not so fast. We can't go to them so they will have to come to us." said Captain Ramius in a thick Russian access "Tell me if a ship left Caprica would they reach beam range before the colonial defense line?"

"Just, yes." Confirmed the XO

"Alright then, inform Earth that we can't get closer. I want a scan of the prison where they are holding Colonel O'Neill and inform the Seals that they may have some work," stated Ramius. "Full combat loadout."

"Ay...Ay." confirmed the American XO

"And load tubes 1 through 4 with fish and I want beam locks on two ships with a standby lock on another 4." Ordered Ramius as the American nodded, they all knew that the tubes where actually missile tubes not torpedoes so they should not call them fish but old habits died hard.

Thousands of light years away from the Twelve Colonies the Kobol sat Lieutenant Karl Agathon, it was well past midnight on the Missouri but he was still wide awake. In fact he and about a dozen other Tau'ri soldiers and airmen where gathered in one of the breakrooms in front of a large TV. The room was dark and the projector was playing as Karl entered his sixth night of binge watching a single show.

"Here comes the best part." said one of the airmen on the screen a man stood in the middle of a castle yard, a sword hung from his hip and he was dressed almost totally in black. Standing beside him was a massive white wolf.

"It is time." said an extra as the man turned and walked toward a door. The next scene showed the inside as he entered the entire hall was full of people dressed in a mix of fur and leather armor. They all turned and watched as the young man moved toward the far end of the hall where a woman stood dressed in black along with a brute of a man in thick furs. He walked to the end and stood before turning to face the crowd gathered in the hall.

"My brothers are gone and as per my elder brother's will and in the eyes of the Old Gods, it is my honor to crown my elder brother Jon Stark King in the North." said the woman in black as she reached up and placed an iron crown on the young man's head.

As he turned to face the crowd, all the men and even some of the women pulled out weapons and began to cheer.

"The King in the North!"

With that going on the show cut away to show a woman dressed in blue with silver hair standing on the bow of a ship. In the distance, she could make out the shoreline, than three massive dragons flew overhead toward the shore. The cheer kept going on as it showed a massive city with a giant red castle, the city and part of the castle was burning as three opposing forces one dressed in green with a golden rose symbol. The other in red with a golden lion fought against each other and another group in black with a seven-pointed star as their symbol. Then it showed the aftermath of another battle as a bunch of men in black lied dead in the snow below a massive wall of ice, moving past them was a massive of living dead all with blue eyes. Sitting on undead horses where their master's creatures with ice like skin and impossible blue eyes. Those eyes turned to the south as the undead army moved through the tunnel in the wall. Then the screen went black and just seconds before the credits. The new king's voice could be heard.

"Winter has come."

"Wow…this is a great show." Exclaimed Karl as the final credits played. "The religious sensors wouldn't let a fake religion be shown in the colonies."

"Just wait until you watch the Walking Dead," added another airman "The question is which show do we start him with? Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead or Kingdom of the Walking Dead."

"Kingdom it is still on." advised a marine "Yes, it is set in the UK but big deal. Remember that episode with Knights vs Walkers that was amazing!"

"Question are they going to use more of the green Hades' Fire on those dead creatures?" inquired Karl as the airman looked at him. "You know Hades' Fire, they used it at that battle in the bay a few seasons ago."

"Wildfire?" inquired an Airman

"Yes, we call it Hades' Fire." said Karl "I mean our version of it is bluish black instead of green like yours but it seems to be the same."

"Wildfire is fictional, I believe it is based on Greek Fire but that technology was lost centuries ago." explained the airman "You have something like this?"

"Yes, a few years ago a truck carrying one of the bombs got in an accident and it went off," explained Karl. "Burned around 3,000,000 square miles of forest before they finally contained it the fraken thing. It can't be put out you know has to be burn itself out or dumping a fraken ton of sand on it. People from Scorpia still talk about even after 30 years."

Before anyone could say thing the sound of yelling could be heard from the other side of the bulkhead. The airmen and Karl walked out and across the hall following the sound of yelling until they found the source. They found the source was Priestess Adrianna who was standing in the center of the mess hall proclaiming for all the night crew that they were doomed to Tartarus unless they repent their sins and proclaim their faith to the Lords of Kobol.

"What is here deal?" inquired a marine as the whole mess hall tried to eat without listening to the woman calling doom down upon their heads.

"Not totally sure but the most devout do not like change all that much, they like any change to happen slow." explained Karl "And the fact that you don't believe in the Lords of Kobol is ticking them off."

"Well if they don't want to change they should meet the Amish," laughed a Marine "I remembered going to a Walmart and seeing a horse tied up to a light right beside a hybrid SUV."

"Wait I heard that a group of Amish was trying to get their own world so that they could live a simple life away from the new technology." stated an Airmen not paying attention to the priestess. "But isn't it kind of weird to use all the new technology to go to a new world to have a simple life away from technology?"

"I would rather see them get their own world then Mr. Crazy Pants, you know the leader of North Korea." stated the Marine

"YOU WILL ALL FEEL THE RIGHTCUS FURY OF THE LORDS OF KOBOL!" yelled Priestess Adrianna

"Lady I am trying to eat here!" snapped another Airman "If you want to talk none sense, talk to a Psychologist. Go push your false faith somewhere else and leave us alone."

"What did you say!" yelled Priestess Adrianna as in her anger she grabbed a nearby tray and slammed it against the man's head. Instantly everyone was on their feet as a group of marines rushed her and body slammed her onto the deck. While this was happening a group of MPs which had been sitting enjoying their lunch rushed over and after pulling the airman and marines off the priestess they placed her in hand cuffs and pulled her to her feet.

"You will all burn unless you accept the light of the Lords of Kobol and bow to their will." Yelled the Priestess as she was forced out of the room.

"Are there a lot of people as crazy as her in your system?" inquired the airmen Karl was with.

"A small but very passionate minority." admitted Karl

"Well the galaxy is full of believers who believe it is their way or the highway." Admitted the airman with a shrug "We are still dealing with religious terrorism on Earth and then there was the whole ORI situation."

"ORI?" inquired Karl

"A group of religious net cases which almost conquered the galaxy, luckily we where able to force them back to their galaxy when we beat them. Last I heard they fell into a galaxy wide civil war when their leadership fell." explained the Airman with a shrug "Your kind of lucky they didn't find your worlds, whenever they made contact with a world who worshiped a different faith they tended to kill everyone who didn't convert. Entire worlds where destroyed by those religious nutcases."

"Damn, doesn't sound like a group I would want to meet," noted Karl as the airman nodded his head.

"Right, but I admit they did do one thing for us. They made so many first contacts with worlds that it makes the semi rulling some worlds easier since we don't have to deal with the whole surprise of life on our planets." explained the airman "Helps avoid shooting situations."

"Kind of like what happened when we first made contact with you." Answered Karl

"Yes." confirmed the airman as he checked his watch. "I better head to bed, I have duty in a few hours. We should reach Atlantis tomorrow."

**At that same moment, it was after sunset in Caprica City and multiples massive crowd was moving through the streets.** While most of the crowds were moving either toward the multitude of government buildings or the Tau'ri mission building. One of the smaller groups was heading straight toward the Colonial Zoo. Unlike the other locations the only people on duty was the normal night guards and they were not trained or equipped to deal with a crowd of that size. They busted through the metal gates and made their way straight toward the center of the zoo.

"We shall destroy the symbols of Earth!" yelled the young priest who was leading the charge, the mob reached the center ring where the different enclosures where located before coming to a stop in front of the enclosure with the symbol of Earth was held. The wolves which had been given as a gift to the colonies by the people of Earth looked up at the crowd of people with some interest.

"When we destroy their symbols we destroy them!" yelled the priest as he pulled a large knife before jumped over the low fence, only to realize afterward that the reason why it was so low was because there was a hidden pit to keep the animals away. He dropped fifteen feet breaking both of his legs in the process.

The wolves watched this whole thing as they man screamed in pain, unluckily for the wolves the followers of the priest headed around and after a couple of minutes they broke into the enclosure using the keepers entrees. The mob descended on the wolf back most of them had only their bare hands. By this time, a News Raptor had arrived and hand begun to film the attempt of by the group of thirty or so people try to take on the five full grown wolves. The colonial cameras captured images of people trying to attack the wolves with bare hands and the wolves defending themselves. It was a bloody mess and by the time the local police arrived four out of five wolves where dead and seven people dead along with them. The police arrived moments after the crowd had lifted the head of one of the wolves up for all the worlds to see.

**Well First I hope you liked this chapter, second I am sorry but I am a huge A Song of Ice and Fire known better as Game of Thrones so I just had to put it in, also it is no spoils just what I wish would happen. Either way I hope you liked it and until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	27. Chapter 27

**Chapter 27 The Stage is Set**

Images have always been powerful tools to get people motivated and the images coming from the 12 colonies of Kobol where being seen very differently by the different viewers. Even the same images where seen very different by the people of Earth then the people of the colonies of Kobol. The news media on Earth which had been only partly paying attention to the events of the 12 colonies was now laser focused on the worlds. The images being shown to the people of Earth spoke louder than any statement made by a world leader.

The image of the massive crowds gathered outside the Tau'ri mission yelling at the top of their lungs and waving the red flag of bravery of Tauron which was the Nazi flag on Earth. This image was being played almost none stop across the multiple news networks on Earth, the only time those images where removed from the screen was when the media decided to show either the Colonial mob raising the head of a dead wolf over their heads or showing the arrest of Colonel O'Neill.

"When are we going to take care of these colonials?" inquired a reporter on Fox news "They are holding our people hostage by preventing them from leaving. They have even massacred the animals we gave them as a gift."

"I agree with you." agreed Bill "These Colonials have pushed it too far, we should send the military in to pull our people out and if we have to defend ourselves."

"That raises another issue what really is our military anymore?" inquired the reporter "This treaty which was signed by the president before the current one hands over some of our military power to the combine Tau'ri military force. I know it is limited to off world actions but it is still worrisome."

"I agree that is a little concerning but the US has a spot on the main council and the Tau'ri alliance is no different than our NATO alliance." countered Bill. "Also the trade deal worked out with the signing of this treaty has proven to be among the greatest for business in decades. On top of that all the new technology will improve everyone's lives greatly, we have cured cancer, cleaned the area and water and all that came from the gate. Now let's turn back to these Colonials."

"One thing that surprised me was that these people where stupid enough to take on wolves with their bare hands." added Bill

"True, but religion makes people do some very stupid things," added the reporter "I was amazed that so few of the people died from the wolves but reports are that the wolves where zoo raised and even so they took multiple survivors arms or legs."

**While the Earth News media was debating, the situation General Raj-Sing was dealing with practical issues coming from the breaking relationship with the nearby colonial worlds. **

"So the Colonials have found us?" inquired General Raj-Sing

"That is what the Cylons have told us." confirmed a German colonel who was his main aid. "From the information we have been given the colonials strapped a jump drive to an asteroid and some intelligence gathering tools."

"How come we didn't find these asteroids?" inquired General Raj-Sing upset at the news.

"Sir, if they were using a passive collection system and if their jump drive was powered down. When we came across the asteroid then it would appear to be nothing more than a normal asteroid. The scanners on Eagle aren't designed to find powered down equipment, even standard an Owl may not pick it up." defended the German Colonel as the General placed his hand under his chin. As he did he felt the Owl bank to his left as it made its final approach to the Ledo Ezeras base, better known as Ice Lake Base.

"Ok, I want all asteroids scanned and any new asteroids entering the system scanned," ordered General Raj-Sing as the General Colonel nodded his head, before making a mark on his computer pad. "How many ships do I have directly under my command?"

"Fifteen sir." confirmed the Colonel

"Since the colonials know where we are, I want to send out seven of those ships on patrol, spread them out in an arch and patrol the area between our boarder and theirs. Focus on the blind spot that we have because we couldn't set up the station because of the Colonials." ordered General Raj-Sing "Also increase our fighter patrols and put more squadrons on standby."

"Yes, sir." confirmed the Colonel "I just wish we had those land based ion cannons to back up our space defense."

"So do I, Colonel." Confirmed the General as the Owl came in for a landing, the Tau'ri had developed a land based Ion cannon similar to those used by the now almost totally gone civilization of Tollan but Earth would get the few they had built first. The Asgard had focused on space-based weapons and the Asgard core had given them more technology that would aid those weapons so the Tau'ri had built them first. The Owl came in for a landing as General Raj-Sing pulled his coat tighter to him as he stepped out into the dry cold air. "In the meantime set all ships and stations in orbit to condition three and double the number of Eagles squadrons on Combat standby."

"Sir, most of our most experience Eagle squadrons went to the Pegues front the ones we have lack time in their birds and are still training." Explained the Colonel "To increase their time on combat patrol will limit the amount of time they have for their training."

The General lowered his head as he thought about it for a moment.

"That can't be helped maybe once our early warning system in fully in place we can take them off combat patrol." ordered the General "Until then I want as many fighters ready to go as possible."

Ice lake base was located almost exactly, where a person would expect it to be based on the name, the base was located on an island which sat in the middle of Jotunn super lake in the far North of Valhalla. The lake which was larger than all the Great Lakes combined was named after a race of Ice Giants in Norse Mythology was frozen 9 months of the year. This was the head of Research and Development for the Tau'ri.

"Welcome to Ice Lake base General." Said the Swedish Base commander

"Thanks for having me, but let's get out of the cold." said General Raj-Sing as they headed toward the nearest of the large hangers which dominated the almost totally flat island. "Earth is very interested in getting those three new birds of yours off the ground as soon as possible. They were not happy that they where not ready to show the world when the Stargate was releveled to the world."

"Well the Red Tail has proven itself in the test flights but we want to test it in some more harsh weather." explained the base commander as they entered the hanger. "And here she is now."

"Nice looking bird." said the German Colonel as General Raj-Sing nodded his head in agreement, he may have been army but he had to admit newest bird looked good. It was similar to an Eagle fighter but with an extended front where the duel cockpit was located. In the back there was a single large fine shot straight up, instead of two small fins. The wings were also bowed forward instead of back. A team of scientists where working on the prototype fighter-bomber, like all the smaller spacecraft the Red Tail was named after a bird, in this case the Red Tail Hawk found in North America.

"Will it live up the requirements?" inquired General Raj-Sing

"That is another thing we have to figure out," admitted a member of the development team. "The problem is that in a dive it is going too fast for the targeting system. Everything we have tried hasn't worked."

"If I remember my history correctly during World War 2 the Americans had a dive bomber with holes in the control panels for better control in a dive." added the German

"That would make more surface area, we will have to look into that." said the member of the Development team.

"General now lets go take a look at our other birds," said the Base Commander as they moved away from the Taita.

"I thought you had four prototypes here?" inquired General Rag-Sing

"Well sir, one of them isn't here. Both Pelican Heavy transport prototypes where flown to Camp Winters for testing by the 101st Division and the 15th Airborne core. The Adder attack helicopter is also being tested in the field with the American 1st armored Division." Explained base commander as the General nodded his head. It was somewhat his fault, he was suppose to visit the base over ten days earlier but the a bad case of the flue had delayed his visit. "But the Raven is still here, the drones we have been working on and so are the upgraded Eagle fighters."

**At that same moment on a few light years away Admiral Pachis stood at the head of a large table, around her was the commanders of all 13 ships under her command.** While it was a risk to have all the commanders gathered on one ship this was not the sort of meeting that could happen over the wireless.

"Alright, we are currently on schedule to arrive at Valhalla in three days," said Admiral Pachis as the native Picon looked at the other Commanders, maybe it was an attempt to pacify the religious elements but there was one Commander from each of the worlds. "Now while these images are old we can see from the Recon photos that the Tau'ri's defenses seam small by our standards."

"Those defense stations look very small." added the Caprican Commander

"True, very true but we have all seen what the Ark Royal did to the Pegasus battlegroup, size means next to nothing if a fight happens." countered the Tauron commander "We have to assume that these stations have the same capably of the Ark Royal."

"Agreed," confirmed Admiral Pachis as she pointed toward a close up photo of the one of the stations. It was T shaped with the long point sticking out toward space. "We believe that this is the front of the station and also where the main gun is located."

"So we jump in behind it?" offered the Gemmon Commander

"Yes." said Admiral Pachis "That way the Tau'ri can't open fire before they realize who we are and that we can explain why we are there."

"And what happens if they do fire on us?" inquired the Tauron member

"Luckily our ships have three jump drives which mean we can jump away, however we are ordered to defend ourselves. Every weapon is on the table to defend ourselves but we are not to fire first." explained Admiral Pachis as she took a breath. "Now I must inform you all something that cannot leave this room, not even your XOs can know about this."

"We under sir." said the Sagittaron commander, she was a rare bird in the colonial military since Sagittaron where not generally known to join the military yet alone rise to the rank of Commander with a likely Admiral hood in her future.

"Alright, while we can't confirm it without hard evidence there is a strong possibility that this world Valhalla as the Tau'ri call it is really Kobol." explained Admiral Pachis as all the Commander's eyes widened at the news. "We believe this based on the remains of an older city located near a large lake, going off the stories in the holy scrolls it is similar with the city of the Gods."

"How do we find out?" inquired the Tauron Commander

"Only way is to land on the world and dig up the city to confirm that it is Kobol." explained Admiral Pachis. "The politicians hope that maybe once we show these Tau'ri that we can't be bossed around and that we normalize relationships we may be able to talk the Tau'ri into giving us the world."

"Giving a world?" inquired the Caprican Commander before pointing down at the map. "Why would they do that? Look at these buildings here, that is clearly a shipyard, looks like they plan to stay.""

"By the Tau'ri's own word they control 20% of this galaxy what is one world to them?" inquired Admiral Pachis as he placed her hand under her chin. "However speaking personally I don't believe their claims and if this is Kobol we may be called upon to retake her, so I want detailed photos taken when we arrive in orbit."

"I am with you Admiral, they claim to be able to cross between Galaxies as well." Laughed the Libran Commander "I find that laughable."

"Laughable or not we need to turn to how this mission will proceed." explained Admiral Pachis "We are to show the Tau'ri that we are strong and that we can't be bossed around."

**Across the void between Galaxies, the Missouri along with the rest of the battlegroup arrived over a blue green planet**. While it was just slightly smaller than Earth, however unlike Earth it contained only one large super continent with a handful of islands spread out over a massive ocean.

"Alright we don't have much time," explained General Shepard as he and the Colonials including the Priestess which had been released from the brig for this journey walked into the back of an Owl. "We need to make this quick, the fleet needs to head toward Sera."

The Colonials said nothing as the Owl took off passing through the shield before making the turn toward the planet below. The colonials noted that there where defense satellites in orbit but there seemed to be no civilian ships, the answer to why there was no ships was soon answered. As the Owl flew lower to the ground the building came into view, there was almost no cities per say instead there was a large amount of single and two storied brick and wood beam buildings. The buildings where gathered together in small groups around open farmland. There were roads running between the settlements but most seemed to be dirt and the most advanced piece of technology visible on the ground was the high speed railroad.

"Why is are the people so primitive?" inquired Sharon as she looked out of the front of the owl.

"We are not primitive." defended Teyla Shepard "See these are my people and until recently we were basically nomads living in tents, we dare not let our settlements grow too large in case of a Wraith attack. Now the Wraith are pushed back and we can start the long climb back to where we were when the ancients watched over the galaxy."

"We offer all the help they want, but some among them want to do it on their own," explained General Shepard "We do help whenever they ask for it and it helps that their farms provide food for Atlantis."

As the Owl neared the ocean the cities became larger and it was clear that more technology was being deployed.

"Looks like the sera refugees are hard at work making a new home." Said General Shepard

"Yes, but that is worry some on some levels," explained Teyla to her husband "Some of the elders are worried about our people mixing our cultures are just so different."

"I can understand their point but there is no real other place for them to go. They are making a huge sacrifice for the rest of the galaxy and this is the least we can do for them." countered John, housing and feeding an entire world's population was extremely taxing but the people of Sera was making the ultimate sacrifice for the rest of the galaxy.

"By the Lords of Kobol." exclaimed Karl as the Owl crossed over the shoreline, almost at once they could see thin towers shooting out into the sky. The sunlight bounced off the almost impossible thin skyscrapers.

"That is Atlantis?" inquired Baltar as the Owl swooped over the floating city, this allowed the Colonials to see the heart of the Tau'ri command in the Pegues galaxy.

"Yes, it is." confirmed Shepard

"You built that?" inquired Sharon to stunned to believe it.

"Actually we can't claim credit for this." explained Shepard as the Owl headed toward a landing pad located near the base of the main tower. "The race that came before us, the Ancients built Atlantis and we just claimed the role that they left behind. So which of you are staying here and which are coming with us into the battle?"

**The sun was just rising over Caprica and the colonels where instantly on edge as the door of the hanger directly behind the Tau'ri mission began to open up.** The colonial marines on duty held their weapons a little closer as the two Owl transports where rolled out of the hanger, moments later the hanger was closed again.

"What are those Tau'ri doing they know that they will not be allowed to leave the planet." said a young marine.

"Stand down private." Said his unite commander "We just got orders from command, the Tau'ri are sending out there transports to pick up the animals at the zoo. It's been cleared by command; they will fly there and back under heavy escort."

"I see." Said the private "Does that mean we can relax a little? They can't fly off world with their transports not here and that bigger one can't leave the hanger without us knowing it."

"No, but it does mean that we will switch our Raptors and Viper Patrols." Explained the commander.

**The flight was normal; the only difference was owls had their back ramps down allowing the Colonial pilots behind them to see inside.** What they saw in one six men squad in one owl with the other only have two men one of which was on a rear-mounted machine gun. While they did not understand what the hand movement meant all the members of one team gave them the middle finger. One of the Owls landed in the middle of the closed zoo, while the other provided over watch. There was colonial marines watching as the Tau'ri came out weapons in a ready position.

"Here are your animals." Said a scared Zoo employee as one of the Tau'ri lifted the lid of the create to see a drugged out white wolf. He opened the other to find the great horned owl sitting there. "Sorry but the Mob carried away the remains of the other animals. I hope that in time we can have these animals returned to their places among the other symbols of the tribes of Kobol"

"You are shitheads are idiots." cursed the head marine as he spun his finger in the air as a sign to the other marines. At once four of members grabbed the larger box and carried it into the back of the Owl. Once it was on board two of the team fell back and the Owl took off. The four Tau'ri all went down on one knee weapons ready as the second Owl came in and the process was finished when the lighter Owl. With that, the two birds took off and headed back under heavy viper and raptor escorts.

**Back at the Tau'ri Mission the last Viper and Raptor had landed and the ground crew had started their work.** For a brief moment the only visible aircraft in the sky was the two colonial news raptors which was filming the crowds and where not allowed to enter the spaceport airspace. Unknown to them they were not alone in the sky.

"There goes the last fighter." reported the lead Owl pilot call Sign Raven 1, the flight of owls which had left the HMS Britannia had finally arrived and not it was time for their mission to begin.

"Then let's make our run." Said her copilot as the two female pilots sat behind the controls of their cloaked Snow Owl.

"Raven leader to flight is everyone in position?" inquired Raven 1 over the radio.

"Raven 2, ready."

"Raven 3, ready."

"Raven 4, ready."

"Raven 5, ready."

"Raven 6, ready."

"Raven 7, ready."

"Alright, Raven flight let's do this one for King and Country. Raven leader to Woolsey we are coming in be ready." ordered Raven leader as she double-checked her position on the scanners, she looked to her right and to her left and saw nothing but open sky and the tops of distance trees. Even though her eyes told her nothing was there her mind told her that to her right were two cloaked owls and to her left was another two. Behind her a little bit she knew there was another two.

A few hundred yards away the colonial forces where in the middle of a shift change as those who were on duty where coming off and those who were heading on to duty. Since the Tau'ri aircraft had taken off and where not due back for almost 30 minutes no one was in a rush, so the marines stood around and talked and drank some coffee. The vipers and Raptor teams which where nearby had powered down their birds and where talking while the ground crew did their work. Nothing was out of the ordinary and there seemed to be nothing going on.

"700 meters." reported Raven leader as she placed her hand on the switch, they couldn't do this type of flying while cloaked. Maybe jumpers could but they could turn tighter then the Owls and they even had shields on while cloaked, they did not. "Decloak now!"

Within seconds the entire first row all five Owls decloaked, thanks to the rising sun which was located directly behind them as they crossed over the runway, none of the ground personal saw them actually decloak. Once they were decloaked they became as visible on Dradus as any other ship and clearly visible to the eye.

"What the?" asked the colonial ground crew as the flight of Owls passed yards over their heads descending toward the Tau'ri hanger. As they passed over the colonial marines, the owls turned together as one spinning their bodies so that their cockpits faced the colonials. As they did this the back ramps lowered presenting an opening, the wing tip of each transport was within 18 inches of the tip of the other owl.

"Move!" yelled the Gurkha as he held onto one of the Spiros three little boys. Their mother and father each held the other and all at once a large group of Tau'ri mostly the small civilian staff along with a handful of none combat soldiers rushed toward the nearest Owl.

"What the frak is going on!" yelled the Colonial commander as he dropped his morning cup of coffee.

"Those Frakers are making a run for it!" yelled a marine as he chambered a round in his rifle.

"Hold fire we will force them down once they are airborne!" yelled the Marine Commander "Get our Raptors and Vipers airborne and get space command on the wireless!"

"Get onboard!" yelled Raven 1 pilot as the Spiros family was rushed onboard. Once they where onboard the Gurkha slammed his hand on the side of the Owl telling the pilot it was ready. Almost at once the Owl began to take off as the back ramp closed. Almost at one the owls took off as the other two Owls which had decloaked after the others. They had provided over watch and now landed unlike the other Owls these two didn't take back off or take people onboard. Instead running off the Owl where two teams of British Special Force ran off the back of the Owl with their weapons ready. The two owls then took off and hovered above the mission, then slowly and very carefully the two transports landed in the grassy area in the front of the mission. The owls where now behind the walls and out of the direct view of the colonial ground forces.

**Above their heads nearby vipers and begun to swarm the area but as they moved toward the flight of Owls. **Which was powering toward the cloud cover, the Vipers and Raptors where moving at afterburning and being fighters the Vipers had a slight speed advantage over the Owl s.

"Command, this is Razor 7 I have the Tau'ri ships in sight moving in to force them down," said the head Viper pilots as the Owls headed into a cloudbank. With the Owls heading into the clouds he looked down into his DRADIS screen, as he looked down one by one the strong blips on the screen disappeared until the only thing visible on the screen showed friendly IDs. "What the frak?"

"Razor 7 command do you have the Tau'ri?" inquired ground command "We have lost them on Dradis."

"Command, I don't have them." admitted Razor 7 as he and the flight of Vipers went into the same clouds that the Owls had only to come out on the other side to nothing. "We have lost visual; I say again we have lost visual."

**At that same moment the two original Owls which had been transporting the living wolf and the owl where heading back toward the Tau'ri mission.** This time there was no trick flying or attempt to hide what they could do instead the Owl pilots after receiving word the pilots flipped a switch on their controls and there right before the eyes of the Colonial pilots which had followed them, the Owls disappeared in a shimmer of light. Once cloaked the Owls banked down and to the left while the Raptors and vipers swarmed overhead like angry confused bees.

**In the prison Colonel O'Neill was standing in the middle of the yard, above his head was the anti-aircraft weaving.** It was maybe 14 feet above his head and was made out of multiple steel cables which was ran between each other over the massive exercise yard to form a grid. Since the cables had to cover so much area it lacked any covering between the cables. The gaps between the cables was only 3ft by 3ft and overlooking the yard where four towers at the corners and in between each tower was a guard post on top of the roof. Since O'Neill was a VIP prisoner he was in the yard alone and all the guards on duty, sixteen in all had their eyes on him.

"Is he ever going to do anything?" asked one of the guards

"He did do that one thing with his hand earlier." Said another guard as he raised his hand and held up the middle finger. "I wonder what that means to the Tau'ri?"

"An insult for sure." Said the guard unaware that floating nearby was a Jumper.

"Already steady." Said the jumper pilot as it flipped over 90 degrees into the vertical so that it was pointed straight up. "Are you ready back there?"

"Ready!" yelled the two members of O'Neill's team, the Russian Sargent Avilov and the American Kim Riles. Both of them had special harness strapped on with ropes attached to their backs. These ropes where attached to hooks placed into the bulkhead of the Jumper. "Open it up!"

With that the back ramp of the jumper opened up to show O'Neill standing 16 feet below them with a metal mesh between them. Due to the cloaking technology of the Ancients the jumper remained cloaked even with the ramp down but the with the ramp retracted into the docking bay the artificial gravity was turned off. Without the vests, holding them in the two soldiers would have fallen straight onto the mess.

Kim dropped a small paper ball straight onto her commander's head. She watched as O'Neill picked it up and read it. The guards at taken notice but not sure what they were seeing they did not move in.

"Do it." ordered O'Neill, the Russian Sergeant Avilov hit the release on his vest, the rope released him and as he dropped feet first. The moment he passed outside the jumper, he became visible causing all the guards to jump in surprise.

"Hello Comrade O'Neill!" yelled Sergeant Avilov as he grabbed onto Colonel O'Neill, locking a clip into his belt.

"GO!" yelled Kim as the Jumper took off Pulling O'Neill and Sergeant Avilov straight up and out of the net. At the same time Kim hit the small mounter on the wall which pulled on Avilov's rope pulling him and O'Neill up and into the jumper. The cloaked jumper flew faster then any viper or Raptor as it headed away from the Prison on its way to a meeting with an Owl which would take O'Neill off world, since the Jumper didn't have FTL.

**In a completely different Galaxy, the colonial observers where in a state of stunned confusion**. As they moved through the massive city of Atlantis they saw things they thought impossible. All around them was technology they had never seen before; they passed by teams of people working in labs on untold projects. There were also a lot of armed guards standing around and even some children running down the hallways.

"Is this a military base?" inquired Dr. Oldstone as the model six Cylon looked at the city.

"A little of both, it is mostly populated by military members, scientists and their families but we are considering adding more people." explained Shepard as the made a another turn. "This is after all a city."

They climbed a few more steps and passed by a large group of men, women and children being escorted by a single Tau'ri solider and someone who looked to be a doctor. At first the colonials thought they could be prisoners but then they saw that some of the people being escorted where armed themselves. They all had large bags and right behind them another group of soldiers where pushing carts full of suitcases and the like. One of the children was carrying a small puppy in her arms as she passed by the colonials.

"Refugees from Sera." explained Teyla as they reached a large open room. There was a series of steps leading up to a large glass window and a strange metal ring located opposite of the window. The ring was likely some strange artwork since it seemed to have no reason to be there aside for the looks. "We are giving them a new world to settle but it is still a shock to them all."

"How are they getting here?" inquired Lee

"Schedule off world activity," said a voice over the load speaker as alarms started to go off. John and Teyla guided the colonials back, the Colonial's watched as the giant metal ring began to spin. Then with a rush of energy, a vortex shot out of the ring before settling into a puddle. Within moments, people began to walk out of the puddle.

"We call it a Stargate and it is the arguably the most important thing the Ancients ever built." Explained General Shepard "The Ancients spread Stargates on countless worlds and as long as you have the address of a world you can create a wormhole between the two gates allowing transportation across the stars within seconds. They are the backbone of galactic transportation and without them we wouldn't be nearly as connected as we are."

"By the Lords of Kobol," said Lee stunned as he began to get a firmer understanding of what their cousins could do.

**Well the Colonials now know about the Stargate. Now I know a lot of people have been asking me when some more action was going to happen. All I have to say is that is coming very soon, now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	28. Chapter 28

**Chapter 28 A Couple of Days**

It had been am amazing couple of days for Captain Lee Adama of the Colonial Navy and one that none of his fellow colonials would have believed sober. First he arrived in a city which according to the Tau'ri was built thousands of years ago by a the first race to evolve into what would appear to be human form. The Ancients as the Tau'ri call them had spread across multiple galaxies spreading life and covering them with giant rings called Stargates, which were capable to transporting people instantly across light years to another stargate on another world. He had the honor of being the first colonial to use one. Within milliseconds after walking into that strange pool, he reappeared in what looked to be a massive park in a strangely normal looking city.

The city while outdated looking as if he had traveled to Caprica city almost a hundred years or so. The cars on the street where dated looking as well however this only made the Tau'ri Owls stand out even more as they sat beside regular looking helicopters. Tau'ri and local forces moved together as they moved civilians into small groups for their journey through the gate behind him. Other Tau'ri and locals where loading up small six wheeled flatbed trucks with different items. Judging from the shapes of some they had to be artwork of some kind.

He had not spent a day watching the evacuation of this world, Sera and its people and its history through the gate. During that time, he had seen so much. He had seen owls and these strangers looking cylinder like ships called Puddle jumpers or Jumpers for short move back and forth carrying civilians. The local military had helped as well but the Owls where faster and the Jumpers where even faster than the Owls and could even travel straight through the gate back to Atlantis. The Tau'ri and the local government where doing what would seem to be on the surface impossible they were evacuating every single man, woman and child from the world, even pets where going with their owners to a new home. He had even seen the Tau'ri load up samples of local wildlife but these where placed on the back burner when it came to the evacuation.

After a day on the surface Doctor Baltar, Lieutenant Valerii and himself had been taken up to one of the two small moons which orbited the world. When they arrived, they found themselves in what appeared to be a forward observation post built under the surface of the moon. There was a small window built in to allow visual spotting but most of it was under the surface.

"So what is happening?" inquired Baltar as he looked at this Tau'ri Major Smith. He was a rather short man, shorter then Baltar but he had arms, which could put anyone of them to shame. He wore a camo uniform in space and he had a red patch on his arm with what looked to be a cannon.

"Well we are waiting, according to the reports from our recon teams the Wraith battle fleets will be arriving within the next 90 minutes or so." reported Major Smith. "Then I if everything goes well I get to go down in history as the first man, well at least Tau'ri ever to bombard a space ship."

"So the world is cleared?" inquired Lee

"No." confirmed Major Smith as he rubbed his finger under his nose to get to an inch. "There is still over a thousand people down there and most or either in the process of being evacuated while others are stationed either at their anti-air craft guns or in their nuclear silos."

"You plan to fight them for an empty world?" inquired Lee stunned that they would do that.

"No, but we need them to think it isn't an empty world." Explained Major Smith "We need them to take the bait and move in and nothing says populated like a bunch of ICBM coming up at you. Luckily the Wraiths are likely hungry enough to come in anyhow."

"What do you mean?" inquired Baltar as the Major rubbed his temples, it was clear he was getting tiered of them.

"Ok, see the Wraiths are kind of like Snakes." started Major Smith before realizing that the colonials may not know about Earth snakes. "See they can go a long time between meals estimates are on average three weeks is their max but they normally like every ten days. They can stretch that out longer by going into their sleep pods, and then it becomes about three years or so. Now before we arrived in this galaxy the Wraith would go into their sleep pods leaving only a small force behind to watch over the rest, after a given amount of time that small force would be replaced by a new one and so on."

"Sort of like a guard post watch?" inquired Lee as he remembered how marines had to switch post every few hours.

"Correct, then after say a hundred years or so they would wake everyone up and feast on the human population which had grown up while they slept. Once they ate their fill they would go back into their sleep pods and start the process over again." explained Major Smith "We attacked them and that caused an alarm to go out and it woke everyone up in all the hive ships across the galaxy. The problem was it was too soon and the human population too small for their feeding. This caused the Wraith to actually fight each other over food and then we made it worse by doing hit and run attacks on them and putting in early alert satellites around populated worlds."

"So the Wraith are almost out a food?" inquired Vallerii

"More than likely and they think that this world without a gate will be their best bet to get a good meal," explained Major Smith before grinning. "Too bad they are walking into a mother fer of an ambush. They have never gone up against our Battleships or any of our new toys and most of all they don't know that we know their greatest technology weakness. With any luck this will go down in history of the breaking of the Wraith strength once and for all."

**It had been a long couple of days for President Adar as he dealt with the fall out of what was now being called in the colonial media, the Morning of the Owls. **The images of the Tau'ri running to their owls and most of all the video of the owls reappearing and disappearing into thin air. This video caused a massive panic among the colonial public as people began to fear that the Tau'ri had ships in orbit or worse of all people on the ground inside the colonials.

The media had on multiple experts to talk about how the Tau'ri could have this technology and what else they could have. They experts tried to explain that while technology like this had not been invented yet in the colonies that there where multiple possible ways that it could be done, from having the metal have tinny TV screens on it which was capable showing whatever was on the other side. No matter what the experts said it made no matter to the people in general. They were scared and worried and they all blamed President Adar for the problem.

"Sir, the Quorum members want to speak to you today." said an aid as Adar sat behind his desk.

"I will speak with them tomorrow, I have a full day of meetings scheduled and I want to address the Quorum and the Colonies as a whole tomorrow evening," ordered Adar as the aid nodded before running out. He knew that he was going to get even more flak for this in the press but the Colonial task force should be at Kobol within a few hours and then he will announce to the colonies as a whole. If he were able to convince the Tau'ri to give up Kobol and move to one of the other worlds they controlled he would be able to save his name before the election. He may actually get the religious vote behind him if he pushed for the return to Kobol.

"Mr. President I have Priest Spiros here, he wishes to speak with you," said an aid over an intercom.

"Let him in." said Adar as he stood up to great the holiest man in the colonies. With dignity, the elder man walked into the room dressed in the traditional robes and carrying the holy scrolls. "Priest Spiros, how may I serve the voice of Zeus today?"

"I am sorry Mr. President but I come today not as the speaker of the Lord of Kobol but instead of a man of the Spiros family," explained Priest Spiros as he sat down. "Please tell me how you plan to get my nephew back from the Tau'ri who took him."

Adar frowned as he lowered his head.

"I am sorry Priest Spiros but I do not see a way that we can get him back at this moment." Admitted Adar

"I don't think you understand the importance of getting him back," stated Priest Spiros in a calm voice but one with enough venom in them to get anyone attention. "He is the heir to our family and without him and his son the line of Spiros will end."

"I understand that Priest Spiros but there is a more important issue," said the President

"The holy scrolls say that he belongs to his family to go against the holy scripts will be very bad," threatened Priest Spiros who summon millions of votes with a simple word.

"I know that but I am working on a more important task which will be possibly the most important event in the history of the colonies even more then the contact with the Tau'ri." explained Adar as he took a breath. "Your holiness I will tell you this but first I need you to swear upon the holy scrolls and the Lords of Kobol that you will not speak of this until I announce it to the public tomorrow night."

Priest Spiros who was the voice of Zeus looked at him confused for a moment before finally doing what was asked.

"Now what are you working on Mr. President?" inquired Priest Spiros as Adar took a breath.

"As we speak a group of Colonial Warships is nearing a world that the Tau'ri have colonized, we believe this world to be Kobol." Said Adar as the head of the holy order of Zeus eyes widened at the news. "We hope that a show of force will force the Tau'ri to respect us and with luck we may even get the world."

"Why would they give up Kobol?" inquired Priest Spiros

"To them it is just another world under their control and if we agree to let them go if we get the world they should do it." offered Adar hoping to convince the holy man, he still was not sure himself if the plan would work. "To them it is just another word among many to us it is Kobol our true home. Tell me Priest Spiros would you rather have your nephew back or would you like to place the corner stone of the new temple of Zeus on Kobol?"

The Priest thought about that for a moment as he weighted the need of his family against the return of the home world of all humanity.

"Kobol." answered Priest Spiros

**At that moment it was sunrise at Camp Winters on Kobol, this camp was named after Richard Winters who led the 101****st**** airborne Easy Company in World War II. **It served as the off world training center for the two airborne unites the American 101st Airborne Division and the Chinese 15th Airborne core.

Two large aircraft sat on the runway, from a distance, they looked similar to an American C-17 Globemaster III transport craft the back of the aircraft was more angler and the nose was slightly pointer. Another major difference was that there were no engines clearly visible below the wings but a quick look showed that the engines where built into the wing itself, other than that it looked similar. In fact it shared the same role as a the Globemaster only unlike it's earth bound counterpart this aircraft called the Pelican was capable not only of space flight but had a hyper drive capable of up to 14 hours. It was meant to fill the middle role of transport between the Owl and the Hadrian class starship.

Moving around on the grass beside the two aircraft where two companies of airborne troops for a total of three hundred men and group wore the digital camo of the United States army while the other wore a different camo of the People's Liberation Army or PLA. All of them where airborne unites which was why they were assigned to this post but they didn't spend much time together aside from when they had to share the shooting range or time on the jump tower.

"Sergeant, why do we have to split up? Why not put all the Americans on one aircraft and the Chinese on the other?" inquired Private Roose

"Talk to command, it was their brilliant idea." explained the Staff Sergeant "Just like it was their idea to test to see how a jump from those pelicans things work. Hell we don't even jump that often anymore we use helicopters and the Owls are even better than helicopters."

"I am more pissed that we have to do it today, I have an important date tonight." said a young Corporal as he made sure his pack was attached right.

"I don't think watching a football game really counts." laughed the Staff Sergeant "Even if it is with your girlfriend. Besides I thought you said she is an Alabama fan and they are playing your team?"

"Yes, go Buckeyes but it is the first time they will meet in the regular season and there will be snow in the Horseshoe," laughed Corporal Robert Lefeld "And I want to see how those SEC players play in the snow."

"And what happens if they beat your team? The Buckeyes only won against Alabama by a fake two point conversion in the Championship game last year. Alabama will come in angry and I wouldn't want to deal with that." added Private Roose

"Well that is true but my girlfriend and I have a bet going and let's say it involves stuff in the bedroom," laughed Corporal Lefeld as a Chinese Captain dressed in their own paratrooper uniform walked up. She was short, very short but had a look of her like she could beat everyone anyone who could be thrown at her.

"Captain." said the three American soldiers as they came to attention; they saluted only because she was a higher rank and while off world they were under the same command.

"Staff Sargent." said the Chinese female Captain in near perfect English "I can't find your own Captain?"

"He is using the restroom, Ma'am." added Corporal Lefeld as the Chinese Captain nodded her head.

"Alright inform him that we take off in ten minutes," explained the Captain as she turned and walked away.

**It had been a rather good couple of days for Jack O'Neill junior, he had been taken off Caprica and within five hours, he was walking back through his front door on Valhalla. **The first living thing too actually know he was there turned out to be the dog followed moments later by the rest of the family. He had hugged all his children and kissed his wife before spending the rest of day with them. In fact the military had given him multiple days off the only issue was that his older self-had also come for a visit.

Jack walked down the stairs to find his older self-sitting at the breakfast table with a cup of coffee and a bowel of cereal. He did not even look up from the computer pad, which had the morning news on it. Quickly Jack got his own cup of coffee and his own cereal.

"So little Sam's soccer game is at 10:30 correct?" inquired General O'Neill

"Yes." confirmed Jack as he looked at his older self, it was not that he hated him but it was just weird to see him. It did not help that once he got off world he had heard people talk behind his back that the only reason why he was promoted so fast was because of who is "father" was. It was as if all the hard work he had done to make his own way in life didn't matter, he was the "son" of the greatest hero in human history and people would claim he didn't earn something because of it.

"Where is Sam anyhow?" inquired Jack

"Last I heard she was shuttling around those Cylons to different worlds to see which one is their home world." stated General O'Neill as the two of them remained silent as the sound of little feet filled the air.

"The kids are up," said Jack as all three of them ran down the stairs as they rushed toward the TV to turn on the TV to their favorite Saturday morning cartoon within moments the sound of SpongeBob Squarepants filled the air.

**Admiral William Adama was doing something that was against all his instincts and what he had only a few minutes of briefing over.** He was sitting in a studio set getting some last minute makeup touch ups as the newswoman Staci Gudolf was sitting across from him getting similar touch ups by a different make up artists.

"So Admiral have you ever been on camera before?" inquired Staci as she talked to her guest before the cameras turned on.

"Two times, but not live and both of them where for documentaries about the Cylon War." explained Admiral Adama as the younger woman nodded her head in understanding.

"Don't worry your go great." confirmed Staci as the makeup artists moved aside as the camera crew got ready.

"Live in three…two…one." said the head camera operator as he held up his fingers. When done he pointed at Stacie as the orange light above the camera turned on showing it was on.

"Thanks Jim, now joining me today for an interview is Admiral William Adama who was is currently in charge of reactivating some mothball ships and training the new generation on the older ship technologies." introduced Staci. "Now Admiral first let me say Thank you for your years of service to the people of the colonies and I understand that you're a veteran of the Cylon war as a Viper pilot?"

"Yes, Staci my first deployment actually was the Battlestar Galactica which I am currently using as my personal flagship." confirmed Adama with a smile that looked like it belonged on anyone stern uncle, which was perfect for a military officer.

"Now Admiral I am sure you are aware as are most in the colonies about the cloaking technology and threats that come of that," stated Staci Gudolf "Some have said that there could be a cloaked Tau'ri fleet hanging over our heads ready to send a storm of missiles down on our heads."

"Staci, that is highly unlikely." stated Admiral Adama "First we have countless numbers of Dradis systems scanning our space and all our expects have said that cloaking the way they believe the Tau'ri did takes a lot of energy. The amount of energy needed to cover up any ship larger than an Owl transport would take up at least three quarters of a ship. Believe me I have spent a lot of time on ships and taking up three quarters of ship leaves room for nothing else. Likely, the owls the Tau'ri used where special sort of like our special forces Raptors. As the Tau'ri themselves have said they want nothing but peace they have no reason to attack us. In truth, they have everything they want. They have taken almost everyone out of their mission and they have said that they rest will leave when our observers return."

"And what will the colonial government do when that happens will they stop the Tau'ri from leaving? They did leave in defiance of multiple court orders and the different governmental orders, if they can get away with that how can the government have any legal force?" inquired Staci as Admiral Adama felt like cursing but he put on a smile.

"I understand your point but until recently there hasn't been a case with an outside group." Explained Adama "We may find that they are members of our government but they do not and they have their own court systems which they hold higher than our own. This raises issues which as a military man I am not capable of answering."

"But we are the senior tribes." countered Staci as she raised a finger to point out the fact.

"If I may speak for myself and not the government, are we really the older tribes?" inquired Admiral Adama as Staci blinked. "I admit I am not an expert on traditional laws or the holy scrolls but in a family it is normally the oldest child who leaves the home first. The Tau'ri left for Earth almost two thousand years before we did so by that logic they would be the oldest tribe."

That line of thinking actually surprising for Staci as she tried to think of a line of question to counter the point.

**It had been a long couple of days for HMS Ark Royal as it patrolled the open area of space located between Valhalla and the Colonial boarder. **Sitting on the bridge monitoring the multiple scanners was Captain Taylor, it wasn't the captain's job to watch all the scanners but he flipped through them on his built in command chair touch screen.

"When will they finish the early warning system?" inquired his XO as he stood behind his captain.

"It takes time to build the station parts and the Hadrian class ships had to be used to transport items to Pegasus." explained Captain Taylor knowing that until such time that early warning net was finished he and the other captains would have to patrol the gap which was open in the network. Luckily as close as he was to Valhalla that gap was small in comparison to areas patrolled by the other ships.

"Captain I am getting an energy burst 78 Kilometers to our rear." Said an operator before his eyes widened. "SIR I have twelve Colonial Warships right behind us!"

"All hands general quarters, spin up rail guns and turn us around," ordered Captain Taylor as he jumped to his feet. "How the Hell did they get this close to Valhalla?"

"Sir shall I charge weapons?" inquired the XO as the Captain thought about it.

"Yes, charge all weapons and send a message to Valhalla, we have contact with colonials at our position." Ordered Taylor as the communication operators quickly pressed a few button, a simple nodded told the captain the line was message was sent. "Now let's deal with these colonials."

It took a few more pushes as the operator switched to a broadcast.

"Attention Colonial Fleet, this is the HMS Ark Royal, you have entered Tau'ri space stand down and turn around now our it will be seen as an act of war." ordered Taylor over the radio.

**Onboard the Battlestar Xiphos, Admiral Pachis was cursing to herself, they were so close to reaching Kobol only to be found now. **She thought about it for a moment, she still had a single jump drive spun up on each ship which meant she could go to Kobol or another location. If she went to another location then the Tau'ri forces on Kobol would be alerted and prepare for them, if she jumped to Kobol now she would have surprise but she would be stuck there until another drive spun up.

"Sir, what are your orders?" Inquired the Command but before the Admiral could do anything the Dradis alarm showed multiple fighters launching from some of the ships.

"Who launched fighters?" inquired the Admiral "My orders where to only launch Raptors because they can jump."

**Onboard the Ark Royal the launching of fighters was noted by the bridge crew.**

"Sir we have fighters coming right at us." Said the XO

"Damn it, not again." cursed Captain Taylor "Alright fire a warning shot directly in front of the nearest Battlestar."

**Out in space the alert viper pilots, which had launched out where amazed as a beam of blue light shot out of the bottom of the Tau'ri vessel. **

"Those Frakers are firing at us!" yelled a viper pilot as he flipped the switch on his control panel and fired off all four of his long-range missiles. He was not the only one as other viper pilots fired their own long-range missiles straight at Tau'ri ship.

**Onboard the Ark Royal alarms where going off as the rail guns locked on the inbound missiles. Within seconds all the rail guns opened up with short bursts the they brought the missiles down.**

"Inform Valhalla we have a code Valkyrie!" yelled Captain Taylor as the code phase went out toward Valhalla. Code Valkyrie meant that a direct threat to Valhalla was approaching and that they were hostel.

**On board the Battlestar Xiphos the deck crew was busy loading the vipers into the launch tubes and loading the Raptors into the hanger bays for launch. **

"Stop!" yelled the deck commander as the multiple crewmembers and pilots looked at him. "Orders from above launch only Raptors, vipers are on hold."

"What the Frak!" yelled the Viper pilots who were ready to launch.

"Orders unless you want to be left behind if we have to jump away!" yelled the Deck Commander "Get all the Raptors in the air!"

"Sir all Raptors?" inquired a deck member

"Yes, all Raptors!" yelled the Deck Commander as he moved off, the deck member he had been talking to turned to the group of Raptors which had been guarded with my marines since the nukes had been loaded where at.

"Get those birds moving!" yelled the deck member as the nuclear-armed Raptors began moving toward the launching points. Their pilots ran to their crafts and within moments, they were flying into the firefight which was taking place between the Ark Royal and the Colonial Battlegroup.

**All the ships where firing their massive guns toward the Tau'ri vessel which was still some distance off. **The golden tracers caused the night to glow and whenever they impacted the Tau'ri ship a blue glow joined the golden glow of the tracer. A deeper glow gathered under the Tau'ri vessel, a beam of light shot out from under the Tau'ri vessel. The beam shot out and hit one of the destroyers causing it to blow up in a giant fireball.

"Frak!" yelled a Raptor pilot as he and the female copilot evaded the golden tracer firer from the Ark Royal.

"We need to get closer to launch our missiles," advised the female copilot

"We can't launch our missiles until we get the go ahead." countered the pilot as the other Raptor pilots launched their long-range missiles. Unlike the others his Raptors and a handful of others where armed with nukes and he was not going to fire until he got the go ahead. "But prepare the missiles for launch."

"Alright," confirmed the copilot as she began to flip some switches, suddenly the ship rocked as golden tracers from the Tau'ri vessel ripped into the side of the Raptor causing the ship to spin out of control and shards of metal to fly around the raptor like glass. Both pilot and copilot where spun around as the spinning brought back gravity for the wounded colonial bird.

"All ships jump, jump now!" yelled the admiral over the wireless

"Get ready to jump!" yelled the pilot as he expected the copilot to reach for the jump controls which was closer to her. That is when he saw the red liquid floating in the cockpit. He looked toward her to see that shards of metal had torn her suit and face part.

"By the Lords of Kobol!" exclaimed the pilot as he reached over and activated the jump while still spinning. For a brief moment, he thought nothing happened then there was a flash and reappeared over a blue green world. He could see the remains of the fleet as he spun along with strange looking stations and Tau'ri warships. The pilot reached over and fought the controls and the fake gravity to fight the spin. Finally, he stopped the spin but he forgot the laws of motion, the body of his dead copilot, which had been turning one way now went the other way. Her now lifeless body smashed against the controls hitting the launch button.

"FRAK!" yelled the pilot as the four nuclear missiles which he was carrying launched off the rails and headed straight toward the planet below.

**Down on Valhalla the Tau'ri military was going into over drive as the alert from the Ark Royal had gone out over the radio. **Word could not reach all members of the military at the same time and as they got word, the military went into hyper drive. All over the planet pilots where running toward their aircraft and the defense systems where getting ready.

General Raj-Sing walked into Valhalla command center located at the top floor of the largest skyscraper on the planet. As he walked in he was greeted by the sight of multiple officers from every member nation of the Tau'ri going about their business.

"Sir, we got world from the Ark Royal of a task group of 12 colonial warships within a single jump of Valhalla. They fired a warning shot and are currently taking fire." Reported the German Colonel

"Alright, raise the shield and get all our birds in the air," ordered General Raj-Sing

"Already done." said another aid as the General looked out one of the large windows just in time to see the shield start the decent down toward the ground.

**The sirens had started blaring right as the game was about to begin, the sound of the warning sirens which sounded to most Americans like tornado sirens caused all the parents gathered to watch the game to turn toward the tower. **The children were doing the same but some of them did not understand what it meant, some of their parents did not know either. General O'Neill and Colonel O'Neill did and as they stood, there they watched the shield go down and begin to cover the area. The shield extended first from the top of the commander tower then using some of the smaller skyscrapers as boosters, it covered all of downtown and some of the suburbs but not all. The Shield actually ended in what local called the wall, which was a raised platform, which extended around the entire perimeter of the shield like an old castle wall. The park where the game was being played was just within the shield.

"Dad what is going on?" inquired Daniel O'Neill as he stood along with his entire family as the shield covered them.

"I don't know," admitted Jack as he pulled his wife closer, a few feet away General O'Neill was getting his phone out. As his eyes widened as he got a hold of someone in command. Jack looked at his older self and knew the situation was bad.

**Across the massive Freyr Lake from the Capital city of Valhalla Celin, Mr. Yu Jai Hong was sitting at a bench under the shade of the massive Elsa ice Castle in Walt Disney World Valhalla. **The elderly South Korean was watching his two great granddaughters get signatures from the two Disney princesses.

"Isn't one of them a Queen?" asked Yu Hong to his grandson's wife who was sitting with him.

"Yes, Elsa." confirmed the mother of his great grandchildren. Suddenly the music stop and a voice came over the speakers.

"Attention guests we have a situation please head to the nearest bunker located on your maps. All cast members guild all guest to bunker and await an all clear."

"What does that mean?" inquired the elderly man as he looked up, from his position he could look down the world street which was the main entrees and across the massive lake which separated the park from the city. From the shimmer he could tell that for some reason the shield was up. "Not go."

"Dad we have to get to the bunkers." said his grandson as he came over with the two girls.

"Go, I will move as best as I can." said Yu Hong as people started to rush toward the bunkers which were hidden under the park. There where multiple entrees and the cast members where guiding the massive crowd to them as best as they could.

"But grandfather." started his grandson but the look on the old man's face told him not to say another world.

"The life of your family and most of all those little girls mean more than mine, I will only slow you down, I'll head there on my own." ordered Yu Hong as his grandson thought about disobeying the old man for the first real time. "GO!"

**Less than a hundred of miles away from the theme park word had not gone out to the two flights of Pelicans as fast as it did to the fighters. **The pilots were unaware of the situation and the American and Chinese paratroopers knew even less. Both sides looked at each other as they sat in seats on either side of the aircraft.

"Why couldn't they have put all the Americans on one airplane and the damn Chinese's on the other," Cursed one of the troopers, like most of the younger Americans they had grown up playing video games like Call of Duty, Medal of Honor and others where the enemy was generally one of three factions, either Chinese, Russian or Terrorists. This caused nothing but tension between the groups.

"Talk to the higher ups." stated Corporal Lefeld as he titled his head back, the mission called for three hours in the air before jumping to simulate a trip, they still had two more hours in the air. Suddenly the sound of singing came from somewhere else on the airplane. For a moment, he listened before smiling and joining in.

"He ain't gonna to jump no more!" sung Corporal Lefeld as he joined the other paratroopers in singing the old World War II song Blood on the Risers "Gory, Gory, what a hell of a way to die."

He was about to sing the chorus two more times when he got a jab in the ribs, he turned on the sergeant only to notice that not all the words where in English, the Chinese must have figured out what they were singing and where singing what could have been the same song in a their native tongue. Corporal Lefeld could not help but smile as these two sides kept singing, even that female Chinese captain who was in charge of the aircraft while not joining in was doing something close to a smile. He had found out when he had boarded the aircraft that her name was Captain Liu Han and judging from how the men under her acted around her, she was one to respect.

**Back in Valhalla command, the situation was getting even more of a panic as the sensors showed ten colonial warships plus multiple of their smaller raptors suddenly appearing in orbit. **Worse of all they had appeared below the defense satellites meaning the main weapons would have to turn to fire.

"Destroy those colonials," ordered General Raj-Sing

"Turning stations will be able to fire in 20 seconds," explained a technician

"Sir, I have missiles being fired from multiple ships!" yelled a staff sergeant as suddenly an alarm went off. "My God, Radiation alarm they have fired nukes!"

"What!" yelled General Raj-Sing as this reached a level he did not think possible.

"Sir, we have four nuclear missiles impound I say again Nuclear missiles impound!" yelled the same Staff Sargent "They are coming right at us! Tracking has impact on the surface not at our ships."

"They fired at the ground?" asked the German Colonel confused, that did not make any tactical sense, why hit the ground first when there were stations which could shot back.

"Doesn't matter get a lock on them and beam them back on their ships!" ordered General Raj-Sing

"Sir, missiles are moving too fast can't get a beam lock!" yelled the a different Staff Sargent

"Fire anti-missile batteries I do not care what it costs shot them down!" yelled General Raj-sing

**Outside the shield at hidden location all over the countryside, multiple missile launchers begin to fire their radar homing missiles.** The main issue was that hitting a missile with a missile most of all a missile which has a drastically increased speed from entering the atmosphere of a planet was extremely hard because the missile coming into the atmosphere was moving so fast that even an explosion right beside the missile wouldn't hurt it. The incoming missile would outrun the explosion, the only way to stop it was a skin on skin kill. With only four missiles coming it should not have been a problem, then just before the first wave of Tau'ri missiles were about to hit the worse thing possible happened. The Colonial missiles broke apart as five smaller warheads fired their own rockets out from the main body, each taking their own path. Four targets suddenly began 20 with the falling remains of the main missiles making an additional four making it a grand total of 24 targets.

"Sir, the colonial missile they are MIRVs." yelled the radar operator, MIRV or multiple independent reentry vehicles meant that they now had 20 targets instead of four each of them tipped with a nuclear warhead. "Damn those suckers are smaller and faster than ours."

The first wave of missiles already locked onto the falling bodies slammed into those destroying them but it was too late the 20 falling nukes where still coming in. The second wave of missiles had followed so close to the first that their computers didn't have time to lock onto the new targets and they flew right past. The third wave did have time and in that wave 12 of the falling nukes where destroyed but that still left eight.

"Next wave inbound." yelled the radar man as the anti-aircraft missiles streaked in. In a flash seven more of the nukes where gone but that still left one on the screen. All around the city the automatic railguns located outside the city opened up, their golden tracers started going up as the civilians who happened not to be in the city when the shield went up headed to different bunkers around the city.

"When is the next wave?" yelled General Raj-Sing, he knew that if the rail guns where firing then there may not be a whole lot of time. If the colonials had any experience with nukes the bomb would go off above the ground to have a wider area of effect.

"My God, there isn't time…" started the radar operator before an ungodly blinding flash of light filled the air. Moments after the flash a roar unlike anything else filled the air as a giant mushroom shaped cloud began to rise over the landscape.

**I have been building up the story to this point and now the real actions can begin, yes the colonials have not only attacked Valhalla but they fired a nuke at it. By a twist of fate but it does not matter. Now I hope you enjoyed this chapter and until next time I hope you keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75. **


	29. Chapter 29

**Chapter 29 Desperate Times**

The missile flew over the top of Celin's shield and headed North East toward the massive lake of Freyr. It flew over the unshielded homes and toward a large docking area for the ships that used the lake, which was slightly larger than Lake Superior on Earth. It flew off over the water and then less than a mile off shore there was flash was brighter than any sun and caused the sun, which brighten the landscape of Valhalla to seam dim in comparison. Instantly the area within a two-mile radius was totally destroyed not even the most reinforced structure would have survived and the massive cranes, which was used to load up supplies onto the ships and trains which happened to be in the yard had no chance. The few unluckily dockworkers were also vaporized never to be seen again.

The blast wasn't limited to just a two mile radius away from the area of total destruction the force of the 2000 kiloton of explosive colonial warhead kept spreading. It tore into the rest of the transport center tearing apart everything within four miles of the center of detention anything not made out of reinforced concreate was totally destroyed and the reinforced concreate only survived by the grace of God. The blast effects kept going out as it reached the homes of people who hadn't lived behind the shield wall. These houses, which would not have looked out a place in any western town, were made mostly of wood and brick. They never stood a chance as the blast wave ripped off sidings and caused the wood to instantly start burning. The trees bent backwards away from the blast before they too became giant torches.

Five miles away from the point of detention, the wave hit the walls of Celin, here unlike anywhere else it had hit the wave met it is match. The powerful shield took the blow with relative ease since it was designed to take multiple direct hits from more powerful nukes and orbital beam strikes. The Shield held and protected those inside, outside the blast damaged weakened even more as it reached the nine-mile mark at this point only light damage was being done to normal homes and reinforced buildings took almost no damage. As far as 24 miles away from the blast, the force of the sound wave caused glass in windows to break. In total an a 48 mile diameter took damage in one form of another with the heaviest damage taking place within a smaller 24 mile diameter circle.

"Report!" ordered General Raj-sing as he stood in Valhalla command in the central tower of Celin. The shield had protected the city as designed but the shield had not kept out the light from the flash so he like so many others where seeing stars.

"One moment." reported an officer "The shield has hold but we have heavy damage to the North East, looks like it detonated over the lake. The wind is also taking the radioactive dust out over the lake so we will not have direct fall out land on us."

"Get rescue owls airborne and get whoever you need to in uniforms out there to help them." ordered General Raj-sing

"Have them where combat space suits if they have too they are rated to take higher radiation then what they would have to deal with on the ground." added the German Colonel

"Good idea." confirmed the radio officer

"Now let's deal with those colonials." stated General Raj-Sing as he turned toward the holographic map it showed the 12 colonial warships floating in space, a swarm of eagle fighters where coming up toward them and the already patrolling fighters had turned and headed toward the colonial warships.

**Onboard the flagship of the colonial task group, the Xipos Admiral Pachis stood stunned as she looked at the image of the flash, which had appeared on the surface of the world she had come so far to see**. With a single flash the whole plan had gone fraken sideway. There was no way to explain this.

"By the Lords of Kobol, we just nuked Kobol." exclaimed Admiral Pachis as the Commander of the Battlestar along with the entire CIC crew looked at her.

"What?" asked the Commander "Kobol? What are you talking about."

"That is Kobol and we just nuked it." Answered the Admiral as her mind started racing; she had been focused on the missiles. Now the damage was done and she had to find a way to get out of here before the Tau'ri could strike at her forces. There was no way to talk them after she had just nuked one of their worlds.

"How long until we can jump?" inquired the commander

"12 minutes." answered the officer keeping an eye on all three FTL drive.

"Twelve minutes we can last that long." Said the Commander as two of the twelve ships in the task force began to break apart. The touch screen image changed to show two of the ships, they had been cut in half, it was as if a laser had cut through it. From the view point the camera was giving them they could see every single bulkhead. "What the frak?"

"These are Tau'ri not Cylons, I don't think we can last three minutes yet alone twelve." explained the Admiral, she could order the surrender but after what just happened no would take it. "Alright launch all vipers and have any raptors who we still have onboard get loaded up with crew members and prepare to head back to the colonies."

"Your abounding ship?" inquired the Commander stunned.

"I am trying to save as many lives as I can!" countered the Admiral "All other Raptors are to jump and head back to the colonies."

"Tau'ri fighters inbound!" yelled the DRADIS operator "I have over a hundred coming up from the planet and even more coming from space."

**The Eagle fighters came up from multiple bases across the planet among the first in the air was Captain Edward Winters.** The African American pilot who had been placed in charge of training new pilots had been first off the ground in one of the fully armed fighters which had been standing by.

"Colonial forces in sight." reported Captain Winters "Valhalla command this is Bronco 1 do I have the go ahead to attack?"

Captain Winters waited for a response but got none, and then he saw the flash of light coming from below. He moved his head to get a better view and saw the top of a massive fireball rising up into the sky. A lump rose in the flight leader's throat.

"Bronco 1 what is that?" inquired Bronco 2

"That is a nuke going off," reported Captain Winters as two of the defense stations fired upon the colonial fleet. The stations each fired their main weapon based off the Ancient defense satellites found in the Pegasus galaxy they fired a green beam of energy. Each of the beams shot straight through the colonial battlestars as if it was butter. "I'll take that as a go ahead to fire."

"Eagle flights we have multiple colonial fighters being launched from Colonial Warships shot them all down before another strike can happen." came a scared voice over the radio as he started to give the barring of the fighters.

"Understood." said Captain Winters as he switched to his long-range missile. Instantly he got a lock on one of the colonial Raptors. "Bronco 1, going one on slammer."

With a press of a button, a long-range slammer missile flew off the rail under his right wing and headed toward the target. It joined a massive cloud of missiles all flying toward different targets. Within moments, his missile along with a large percentage of others all went off as they slammed into their targets.

He got another lock on tone and fired again, at that same moment another one of the defense satellites fired their main weapon causing another colonial warship to be cut in half. What surprised the Captain was that some of the defense stations where not firing on the colonial fleet. Then he realized that the stations which were not firing where the ones in which the colonial fleet rested between the station and the planet. They were holding their fire because if they missed they would hit the planet, so the stations with a side view of the colonial fleet were firing.

**Luientenant James Chontos had not been this scared since his girlfriend had a pregnancy scare in high school and as his viper came shooting out of the launch tube of his battlestar. **What made it worse was under one of his wings sat a long black tube with a flaming arrow on it. He shot out into space and for a moment, his eyes widened as he saw the curve of a planet, which did not belong to any of the colonies. He smiled for a moment taking in the beauty of the world below him then his wireless system went crazy with calls.

"INBOUND MISSILES BY THE LORDS…" yelled someone before the line went dead in a loud scream. Lt. Chontos turned his viper toward the planet only to see a swarm of black shapes flying up at him, seconds later the first wave of vipers which had taken off in front of him where destroyed in multiple fireballs. A few luck pilots were able to eject into space but most never had a chance.

"What the frak is going on!" yelled James as he tried to get a lock on the fighters but they were too far away.

"Head toward the planet we need to keep those fighters back so our battlestars can deal with the fixed defenses," yelled a voice which sounded like it had to be an officer. Chontos dove toward the planet, for a moment a destroyer blocked his path but then a green beam of energy cut straight through the ship. As the ship began to break a part he could actually see into different compartments, people his fellow brothers and sisters of the colonial navy where floating dead in space. One of them a young woman in a flight uniform bounced off his cockpit window causing him to scream.

"Red five is hit he needs to land!" yelled a voice in the distance

"There is no place to land!" yelled another voice over the wireless before the went dead.

"They are tearing us to pieces up here!" yelled another voice "By the lords of Kobol they just took out the…."

The line went dead as that pilot was killed.

"All Vipers this is Admiral make a break for the planet lead the fighters away, we to lead them away from the Raptors." came a voice over the wireless command change.

"We are being sacrificed," admitted James as he and the others Vipers made a break toward the planet far below. "We are all going to die."

**The flash had been blinding and the shield wall did nothing to stop that, it did stop the shock wave or the radiation.** When the flash cleared the families which had been gathered for a friendly soccer game or football as those families from nations besides America called it greeted by the sight of a mushroom shape cloud rising high above them. It was a horrible sight and one that would killed anyone who was not protected by a shield.

"Dad what happened?" inquired Sam O'Neill

"I don't know," admitted Colonel O'Neill as his mind went racing. Jack turned toward his older self only to see him getting back on the phone, the blast must have messed with the call but it looked as if the shield had protected it from any EMP effect.

"Jack?" asked Cassie O'Neill who had their younger daughter and son holding onto her legs. She had a look of pure terror on her face and Jack was sure he had one on his own face.

"We are safe, we are behind a shield," explained Jack knowing that the shield was as powerful, on paper at least as the shield protecting Atlantis.

"We need to get to the command tower!" ordered Jack O'Neill Senior as the General looked at the Colonel. For a moment, the two of them glared at each other. "Don't worry I am not going to ask you to leave your family they are coming with us."

"I'll drive old man," confirmed Colonel O'Neill the they all moved toward the car which sat in the parking lot along with others. Sitting there as well was a police cruiser who's officer where standing outside the cruiser just watching the rising cloud.

"Officer we could use a police escort to the central tower." Ordered General O'Neill as the officer blinked, he was about to protest then he saw the military tags on the car which showed the younger O'Neill rank. Believing him to be important but not realizing how important the officer nodded his head before running to his cruiser and turning on his lights.

**The shock wave had shaken the man and women of the 101****st**** Airborne and the Chinese 15****th**** paratrooper core as they sat in the back of the Pelican transports. **Instantly there planned jump followed by a couple of days of field training had changed they had a real mission to carry out.

"Listen up!" yelled Captain Liu Han as she made sure her equipment was ready. "Search and Rescue teams are fifteen minutes out and even then they will be stretched thin. We will be the first people on the ground and we are going to save everyone we can find. Now Stand up!"

With that, the Americans and the Chinese paratroopers stood up and attached a static line to a wire that ran through the aircraft. Corporal Lefeld's hand was shaking as he attached his line to the cable. With that done he placed his helmet on. The full faced helmet covered his entire face and the moment it active a heads up display appeared, it took a moment for the small computer he carried on his back to boot up but within seconds, it was done. He looked down at his wrist where a small screen about half the length of his forearm sat. It showed his location, pulse and unit number. He hit the touch screen to turn it off but stopped and instead switched it to the life sign detector. Instantly he was reward by the countless other dots around him all glowing a blue showing that they were known friendly units, unknown human contacts would appear as yellow while known Aliens would appear in multiple different shades. With that done he looked up and around, that is when he saw it dressed in their jump gear and helmets with their weapons in jump position he couldn't tell the differences between the Chinese's and his fellow Americans. The only way to tell was that half had American flags on their uniforms below the Tau'ri flag while others had the Chinese flag.

His thoughts stopped there as the back ramp was lowered and the wind came whipping in.

"Go…Go…Go!" yelled a voice as the men and women rushed down the line jumping out the back. Within seconds, it was Robert's turn. He leapt into the air and was reward seconds later by the sound of his parachute opening up. With that done, he had nothing to do but look around, by force of habit he looked down at the ground only to see a large grassy field, which was perfect landing area. Then he looked up, his eyes widened as there to the North West over the lake a giant mushroom shape cloud was rising.

"My God." said Robert as he and the other airborne soldiers drifted toward the ground. They landed in the soft ground and instantly they cut away the shoots, normally they would have collected them but they had bigger concerns. Robert unslung his rifle and ran along with the rest of his squad toward the top of a nearby hill. When they reached the top, they saw that they had landed only a few hundred yards away from the parking lot of Walt Disney World Valhalla had not taken the attack well.

"Whoever did this is going to pay." cursed a nearby solider

"Move we need to search that park, the longer we stand around talking the more people die!" yelled someone in the distance as the squads moved forward.

**Captain Winters spun his eagle around in a tight turn as he scanned the area for more colonial vipers which had once been swarming over the planet was now all but gone.** It had hardly been a fight. First each of the Eagle fighters carried eight missiles four long-range slammers and four close quarters missiles.

It seemed that the Colonial vipers did not carry many missiles they likely only four, they did have more cannons but cannons where not as good at range as missiles. Even the missiles the colonial carried seemed to have a shorter range then missiles under his own wings. The Vipers had the edge on his Eagle when it came to the number of guns. He only had two rail guns while the Viper has three cannons 30mm cannons that could rip an Eagle apart just like any railguns could. The Vipers could do tighter turns and the placement of those guns made a triangle with one cannon on the two side wings and a third on the top fin. That was something that none of the pilots had seen before and a few Eagles had been taken out from fire from those cannons. The Captain made note to himself of all of this so that the Tau'ri could use it later.

The Colonial Task group was being slaughtered it once contained 12 ships, had each taken multiple hits from the different defense stations and from attacks from the Eagle fighters. Even the warships which were stationed away from the planet to better respond to an attack from an Ha'tak class ship had joined the fight. They had entered the fight slamming the colonial ships, which had jumped passed their defenses with their own missiles and beam weapons. It was as if the colonials had entered a meat grinder and in the end there was almost nothing of those ships but twisted metal.

A few Raptors had tried to get off but with so many angry Eagle pilots in the air none of the got far. A handful of Vipers where still in the air heading toward the planet, in a vain attempt to do escape to the planet where a pilot stood a chance of hiding out in the woods.

Captain Winters spun his Eagle down and entered the fight with rail guns blazing, he was rewarded with a Viper exploding from his roads. He spotted a single Viper, which had passed the line of Eagles and was making a dive for the planet. He turned his Eagle on the Viper and got a tone in his headset telling him that he had a lock. He fired his last missile but cursed as the missile self-destructed only a few hundred yards ahead of him.

"Damn it," cursed Winters, bad missiles was bound to happen every so often no system was perfect but it didn't stop him cursing. He was not going to let a twist of fate take away another kill so he dove after the escaping Viper.

**They rushed toward the remains of the park, the paratroopers of the American 101****st**** Airborne division along with members of the Chinese's 15****th**** Airborne division stepped over the broken and twisted remains of the park entrees. **They had split into multiple groups to cover as much of the park as possible as fast as possible. All around them was what remained of the entrees to Walk Disney World Valhalla. The once picture perfect copy of the ice castle from Frozen was twisted and broken. Bare metal could be seen and the whole thing leaned away from the blast zone.

"Not what I thought I would be doing today," cursed an American solider as he grabbed a large plank of wood which was blocking one of the entrees. They stepped over what remained of a man in a Mickey Mouse suit, the life sign detector did not go off as the soldiers walked past.

"Me neither." confirmed a Chinese solider as they moved into the park and was greeted with what remained of the world's main street. Before them was all that remains of the gift shops and food shops all themed to different nations. The Bronze statue of Walt Disney which sat by the gate was still standing but it did not seem as magical as it stood with all that destruction around it.

"US ARMY!" yelled the Americans hoping against hope that they would get a response.

"CHINESE ARMY!" yelled the Chinese as some of them looked down at the small flat screen computer located on their arm.

"Radiation is still ok, but don't know how long that will last, the wind is blowing most of the heavy stuff out over the lake." yelled an American "Got nothing on life sign detector."

"There are children here, we are not leaving until we clear this park." confirmed Captain Han as she moved down what remained of the street. She could smell the different scents of food and candy which Disney had a habit of spraying to get people into the shops. Those shops where now hunks of wood and plaster.

"OWLS are inbound!" yelled another voice as Liu Han turned around to see a group of Americans and Chinese soldiers reaching into a massive pile of twisted metal. She watched as the group did something, which meant absently nothing but also meant almost everything.

Together the group of soldiers who were from nations which had fought each other in the past, had been on opposite sides of some many political struggles. Together they reached down and pulled up the bent and twisted remains the tallest of the flagpoles which had surrounded the entrees to the park. Together the pulled the pole up and to the amazement of Lui Han instead of the American flag or her our own Chinese flag, there at the top was blue and silver flag of the Tau'ri alliance. These soldiers had raised their common flag first not the flag of their homeland. Little did she or any other knew but that moment had been captured by multiple personal cameras located on the side of each of their helmets.

"Captain Han I have life signs!" yelled an American Corporal "I have multiple life signs!"

"Where?" inquired Han

"15 yards to the North." reported the Corporal as they rushed forward toward the entrees of one of the rides. The concreate structure had held up better than the wooden ones outside and the statue of Ariel on the outside was missing its head but other then it remained intact.

"Clear a landing area for owls and get all the dead out of the way," ordered Captain Han as she stepped over the body of an old man with a cane. He had not been fast enough and it had cost him his life.

"US ARMY is anyone in there!" yelled the Corporal as he walked in his weapon raised, it was not as if he was going to shot but the gun had a powerful flashlight which cut through the darkness. Maybe by some sick twist of fate but the power was still somehow working on the ride so they had to listen to a static almost ghostly sounding music from the ride.

"Here, we are down here!" yelled a voice as they moved down a staircase and to a door, which led into the tunnels, which ran under the theme park. They had to move a large block of concrete, which had fallen on a door but thanks to the power suits added to their armor it was done with only three men. With that out of the way they moved into the tunnel itself. Normally only park employees would be down here instead the US and Chinese Paratroopers found a large group of civilians, some families others workers huddling in the darkness. A child a young girl screamed as they saw the weapons.

"Don't worry they are here to save us." said her father clearly a Korean.

"Where is Great Grandpa he was behind us," asked a slightly older girl as Lui Han remember the body of an older man who lied outside the ride.

"We have Owls impound we need to get you out of here." said the American Corporal

"What happened?" asked a multitude of people.

"Not totally sure who fired but there was a nuclear strike of some kind over the lake." explained Captain Han "Now let's get moving we need to clear this park."

Suddenly Captain's Han's radio came alive in her ear.

"Colonial Viper spotted over the lake heading our way." yelled a voice "Being chased by Eagles."

"Bombing run, everyone stay here!" ordered Captain Han as she ran back up the stairs and outside to make sure everyone got out of the way.

**Lieutenant James Chontos was cursing as he flew his Viper over a massive lake; he had hoped that flying close to the blast zone would have helped keep the Tau'ri fighters away it failed.** He had tracer fire dancing around his bird as he looked for a target for his Hade's firebomb.

"I'll make them pay for killing us all." Said James as he deep down admitted that they had it coming but he had seen his friends being slaughtered caused his blood to boil he wanted pay back and he saw it. A group of soldiers moving among some destroyed structures. He had found his target. He placed his hand of the trigger and was about to release his bombs when the Viper shook and smoke filled the cockpit.

"No…frak no!" yelled James as he Viper began to spin out of control before crashing upside down beside the remains of some building. For a moment, he just hung there in his straps alarms blaring, and then slowly he moved to drop his bomb. While it would only drop, a few inches it could possibly go off and his aircraft would be engulfed in black flames. "Well only one thing left to do."

"Touch anything." said a voice as he felt a gun being pressed to the side of his helmet. He turned to see one of the Tau'ri soldiers in their strange uniforms pressing a pistol into the side of his head. Before he could do anything, another Tau'ri released his buckles and removed the cockpit. He fell hard on his head as he dropped the few feet from where his Viper hung from the remains of a tree. The nose was in the remains of a sidewalk.

"Get on your knees!" yelled a solider as James got on his knees as another solider pressed a rifle to the back of his head.

"Oh Lords of Kobol…" started James as he prayed for the last time.

"Fuck your lords of Kobol," yelled another voice as a round was chambered behind him.

"Hold your fire," yelled a new voice as James turned to see a smaller Tau'ri walk toward him. Judging from the marks on the armor he or she was a higher rank.

"Captain Han, they just nuked a city," yelled the solider as he pointed toward the mushroom shaped cloud.

"I know but he is a prisoner of war now," stated Captain Han coldly "Besides he can give us so much information before we kill him."

"Very well." cursed the solider as he pulled out plastic restraints and restrained his hands.

"Make sure that bomb is disabled and that Viper is secured, we can study it," ordered Captain Han as the sound of engines filled the air. James looked up to see one of those Tau'ri Owls coming in for a landing while others were coming in behind it.

**Back in the Command Center General Raj-Sing looked over the landscape, the entire colonial fleet was destroyed but the damage was done and the landscape of Valhalla would never be the same again.** He looked at his watch the whole attack had lasted only ten minutes.

"Dial the Gate, we need to inform Earth what happened," ordered General Raj-Sing, he looked up at the sound of the elevator opening only to see an out of uniform General O'Neill setting off the elevator. "And then we are going to prepare for war."

**Well I hope you liked this chapter and the description of the fall out on Valhalla. Now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	30. Chapter 30

**Chapter 30 Angels on High**

Colonel Cameron Mitchell sat behind General Samantha's Carter's desk in Stargate Command which had moved to the new moon base leaving Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado far behind. Part of him hated it, not the move to the moon but being behind the desk. The main reason why he had turned down every chance to become a general of any kind was that he wanted to be out in the field. Maybe when he was older he would consider putting a star on his uniform and become a general until then he wanted to be in the field. Now he did not have stars on his shoulders or in the field and he would not be until Sam came back from her little trip with the Cylons.

"Unscheduled off world activation." said a voice over the loud speakers as the leader of SG1 groaned, slowly he moved down to the command center, which was a level down.

"Sir, it is from Valhalla." reported the operator as everyone calmed down a bit.

"Wonder what they want?" said Dr. Daniel Jackson as he walked up with a clipboard in hand. Even while most people had made the switch to computer tablets, he had not. Maybe it was because he would also cross things out while he was doing translations of Alien writings.

"Stargate Command come in." said General O'Neill's voice over the radio a second before the image of him appeared on one of the multiple flat screens, which hung from the ceiling.

"Jack, I thought you were going to take a few days off what are you doing in Valhalla command?" inquired Daniel

"Well I don't think any of us is going to have time off any time soon," countered General O'Neill as he took a breath. "The colonials launched a nuclear strike on us."

"What?" asked Colonel Mitchell

"You heard me, a nuclear strike," confirmed Jack "They had a small fleet get past our defenses and before anyone could do much of anything they had fired nukes at us. We got all but one, one got through and it hit just outside of Celin on that lake."

"How many dead?" inquired Daniel

"Don't know, we destroyed the fleet and rescue teams are out but it is going to be bad." Said Jack "We need to inform the President and the other world leaders."

"We will do that," confirmed Mitchell

"Good, I am going to send you what we have and we will check in every 30 minutes with updates," explained General O'Neill "Also we need to inform the people we still have on Caprica and our forces on the Pegasus Front."

"That may take some time, and their operation begins in about half an hour now." explained an officer.

"Can't be helped the fleet will likely be recalled." stated General O'Neill. "Shepard will not like it but it can't be helped. I need to get back to work."

"Alright, we have some work to do here as well." Confirmed Mitchell as the gate shut down. "How long does it take civilian news to travel from Valhalla if it is using those communication relay stations we set up?"

"About twenty to twenty five minutes." explained a technician

"Alright I better go use speed dial number 1," confirmed Mitchell as he moved back toward the office where the computer was. He pressed a few buttons and was rewarded by the image of a young army Major sitting in some desk in the White House Military Office. "This is Colonel Mitchell at Stargate Command, I need to speak to the President at once this is a Critical."

In the United States Government the world "Critical" was only placed on the most important documents and messages. These had to be in front of the President in fifteen minutes or less, it did not take long for the President to get on the line.

"Mr. President we have a situation on Valhalla." reported Mitchell as he snapped to attention. The President returned the salute allowing Mitchell to relax a bit.

"What is it?" inquired the Commander and Chief of all American Armed forces and current President of the Tau'ri.

Mitchell took a breath as he steadied himself, he could see that the President was sitting in the Oval office.

"Sir, we got a report from General O'Neill is that moments ago a Colonial fleet appeared over Valhalla and carried out a nuclear strike on the planet." reported Mitchell, he could see the President blink at the news as if he could not understand it. Then slowly understanding came across his face.

"My God, how bad?" inquired the President

"Unknown, the colonials shot off a MIRV with 20 warheads. We got 19 of them but one got through and went off by Celin. We destroyed the fleet in orbit but the damage was already done," reported Mitchell "General O'Neill said he would send a more detailed report within half an hour."

"I see." said the President as he rubbed his chin. "Alright, when General O'Neill contacts again tell him to get back here, I am going to contact the other Tau'ri members."

"Yes sir." confirmed Mitchell as the line went dead.

**Everything was peaceful onboard the Akula as it sat in a distance orbit of the twin colonial worlds of Caprica and Gememon. **Since both worlds, where so close to each other there was a lot of traffic and the defenses for two planets filled space. This prevented the cloaked Tau'ri ship from getting close enough to the Caprica to do a beam out of the Tau'ri personal.

"Flash traffic!" yelled the American XO as he stood watch on the command deck of the Akula. "Wake the Captain."

"I am already up." Said Captain Ramius as the old Russian submariner walked onto the command deck. He moved to get a cup of coffee which sat on a small built in table as the XO moved to get the information from the computer. "So what do we have?"

"Sir…Vahalla has been attacked." reported the American XO as the Captain and the entire bridge crew spun around and looked at the XO "Sir, the colonials sent a fleet to Valhalla and they carried out a nuclear strike on Celin."

"My God." said another bridge officer.

"How many people are dead?" Inquired Captain Ramius

"Untold but countless thousands at least." stated the XO "The attack happened less than 10 minutes ago so they don't know anything for sure."

"Our orders? Are we supposed to launch our own nuclear strike on the world below?" inquired the weapon's officer.

"No orders yet, even so I don't see us launching a nuclear strike on the civilian center but we do have orders to clear the way for the evacuation of our embassy when the time comes." stated the XO as he took a breath. "Sir it the only way we can help our embassy down there is to clear a way for them to escape is to destroy those ships standing in the way of any ships coming up."

"The Snow Owls got off world fine without anyone seeing them last time, they should be able to do it again." countered the Weapon's officer

"The Colonials had no idea what they were dealing with before, can we risk that they have figured something out in the mean time?" countered the XO before turning back to the Captain. "Sir, their Battlestars are built with two hauls with a gap of empty space in the middle. Kind of like a double haul of an oil tanker, we can use that and beam some Seals onboard to plant some of the nukes we have. Then on the order we can blow their ships to kingdom come."

"Is the space wide enough for us to do this?" inquired Ramius

"Yes, sir but the space has no breathable atmosphere so the Seals will have to suit up." explained the XO "Also from our look into their computer systems aside from catwalks for maintenance people to use when they do go out for maintenance they have no security systems there."

"Weapon's officer how many beam able nukes do we have onboard?" inquired Ramius, he already knew but it never hurt to double check.

"We have 24 warheads which we can transport onboard, more if you want to use the ones already attached to missiles but I wouldn't recommend that. We would have to mess with the missile themselves and that may lead to mishaps," explained the Weapons officer.

"24 of their Battlestars going off would make a great opening," admitted Ramius "Do we know which one is their flagship?"

"Sir the Colonial HQ is sadly on the ground and out of our beam range but we can take down their main communication center. It is an older Battlestar turned into a fixed defense station but it has a full armament of aircraft." Explained the XO "There is also another nearby station where the colonial navy has stored over a 100 nuclear warheads plus other weapons. If we do this I want to hit these two first."

"Very well, have that go off first and then stagger the detentions by 20 seconds. We want them to think they are being fired upon not that we have charges preplaced," explained Ramius as the others nodded their heads. "Send a message back to Valhalla with our plans and request a time table for our counter attack."

**Down on Caprica the message about the attack on Valhalla reached the mission outside of Caprica City. **Almost at once Doctor Woolsey called Major Labh commander of the Gurkha force and all the defenders of the mission.

"This is bad," said Major Labh as he looked at the same report that Doctor Woolsey was looking at.

"That is an understatement," stated Doctor Woolsey "I wish I had taken one of those Owls off world but…"

"You felt it better to remain here in case of a political issue." stated Major Labh

"Yes, the issue is can you get everyone away using the two Owls and our two Jumpers?" inquired Doctor Woolsey as Major Labh nodded his head.

"Yes, but it is very close we couldn't take much of the equipment with us." explained Major Labh "The main issue is the Condor transport in the hanger there is no way we can take it with us and trying to open a whole for it will cost too much."

"Then I guess you will have to destroy it," stated Woolsey "Can you do it?"

"With ease we can take the computer core and set the hyper drive to explode. On top of that we have enough explosive to blow this place to kingdom come, I would want time to remove all the computer files and do some other things." explained Major Labh as he thought about it for a moment. "When will they declare war?"

"Likely some time tomorrow, it is late afternoon in the United States and since they he is the current President of the Tau'ri he will have the official final speech," stated Woolsey as he rubbed his temples, he had been part of the team which had drafted that part of the Tau'ri treaty. "If I was advising the other world leaders I would advise them to declare war as well just to cover all baes, not every nation has made the changes to allow the Tau'ri council to declare war. We are to hold our position and broadcast the President's speech then we leave as fast possible."

"Alright with your permission after the speech we will engage the Colonial forces outside?" asked Major Labh as Doctor Woolsey raised an eyebrow. "If we really want to destroy everything we can set off the generator we brought, at the lowest setting it will destroy everything within half a city block and if we start a firefight it will drive the civilians away. I don't want to kill the civilians."

"Alright do it.," said Doctor Woolsey "Also set every explosive charge you have, nothing is to remain of this place after we leave."

**Back on Valhalla, the mushroom cloud was still clearly visible but it had started to lose its shape as powerful winds began to break it apart.** Sitting on his hands and knees among the remains of a strange place sat the Colonial Viper pilot Lieutenant James Chontos. He had been searched and everything aside from the cloths on his back had been taken from him. His hands where restrained by thick black bands which remained him of thick wire ties. His legs where similar restrained and standing behind him guarding him and his downed Viper stood two Tau'ri soldiers armed with assault rifles.

He watched the scene around him as the Tau'ri black transport aircraft, Owls came in for a landing in a makeshift landing area that teams of soldiers had cleared out. The moment the area was large enough for landings the Owls landed one at a time. He had expected to be on one of the first transports but he was not, instead families came running out of one of the buildings. Parents tried to hide the scenes of destruction from their children but screamed filled the air.

"What happened to Elsa's Castle?" asked one of the children as her father carried her into the waiting owl.

"What sort of military training center is this?" inquired James

"What did you say you Colonial SOB?" asked one of the two soldiers standing behind him.

"This is a fire fight town right?" inquired James "Where your soldiers train for close quarters fighting."

"Why the hell would you think that? This is a theme park you were trying to kill civilian families who had come here to make memories with each other." cursed the same soldier as James blinked. "Don't you have theme parks on your worlds?"

"Yes, but they are just rides? Why would you have a castle or anything else you have here?" inquired James only to have the other soldier walk around and stand in front of him. Before he could say another word, the soldier punched him so hard in the face that one of his two front teeth came out and he was sent backwards onto pieces of broken brickwork.

"Damn, Mike you didn't have to use your power suit we don't want to kill him." said the fist soldier

"Speak for yourself Tim." said the soldier who had punched him. "This son of a bitch tried to bomb a bunch of children, my only regret is that I didn't take off his head."

**Across the lake from Disney world Valhalla the massive mushroom cloud could still but at a different angle. **Moving down what remained of a road rumbled a column of Tau'ri Leopard III battle tank with lines of six-wheeled Cougar APC, four wheeled Puma recon vehicles and countless heavy duty trucks. All the tanks had massive plows attached to the front. These where designed to move away rubble from war torn streets or clear mine fields, they did not think that they would use it on Valhalla but they were now using them to clear away rubble, which had fallen on the street.

Standing up in the commander copula of the lead Leopard Tank was Major Hienrich Jager of the German 21st Armored major and his men had only arrived in Valhalla a week earlier and now he was leading the first major ground force to enter the blast area.

"God take those who died here into your arms and let them rest in peace," prayed the Major as the he looked out at the destruction, which was all around him. He had a rather simple job but vital, he and the other Panzers under his command where to push forward and clear the roadway for the trucks and other wheeled vehicles. There where large pieces of concreate and fallen trees which would have slowed down if not stopped any wheeled vehicle. With the thick blade attached to the front of his tank, he could push through it. Moving ahead of the tank were five soldiers armed with life sign detectors and radiation systems.

"Look sir, that is the largest building I have seen." said the Driver as he stuck his head out of the front of the tank. The building he was pointing to was a stone and brick church, the stain glass had all been blown out and some of the ordinates around the outside was knocked down but it remained for the most part intact. All around the church the houses fallen down and where nothing more than a pile of wood and bricks.

"The large stones must have held up better than anything else," explained Jager as he looked at the church, then he saw movement coming from within the church. The door opened and a little girl maybe 7 or 8 years old walked out of the building in a daze. Blood was pouring from multiple wounds from what were likely glass shards. Behind her came multiple other kids all about the same age and all as wounded.

"My God." exclaimed Jager as he pressed his radio, which was attached to his uniform collar. "Halt column, we have wounded children coming out of the church get medics up here now."

Without waiting Jager stepped out of the tank turret and jumped down onto the ground. He ran over to the stumbling little girl who was looking around as if she was trying to take it all in.

"Mommy!" cried the little girl as she looked toward the parking lot where the twisted remains of multiple cars sat.

"Its alright." said Jager calmly as he took the girl in his arms seconds before her legs gave out.

"Mommy, where is mommy?" cried the girl

"We will find your mom," stated Jager as the medical teams began to rush toward the scene.

"She was going to pick me up from choir practice," said the girl as she pointed toward the twisted remains of a car. "That is our car."

"We will find your mom." reassured Jager deep down knowing that the girl's mother was likely dead.

"I'll take her sir," offered a medic as Jager handed the girl over, before looking down at his uniform there was spots of blood on it. Even so, he had to get back to work and as quickly as possible, he got back in his tank and headed down the road going deeper into the remains of neighborhoods. As the tanks rumbled on a roar filled the air causing some of the tank commanders behind Jager to pull back on their heavy machine gun. Jager himself had almost done the same thing but then he saw that the source of the sound came not from some enemy but from the arrival of three Daedalus class warships which had entered the airspace above the blast zone.

"Sir, when do you think we will pay these Colonials back for what they did?" inquired the Driver as the tank moved forward.

"Not soon enough." stated Jager as he looked at the blood of a child, which stained his uniform. "When it does happen, we need to repay them tenfold for what they did here."

**General Samantha Carter looked over the remains of yet another destroyed world; this one looked different from the last two worlds she and the Cylons had visited. **The first two worlds had been destroyed at almost the same time and clearly from the blast marks, which still could be seen from Goa'uld orbital weapons. The Asgard core had said that the worlds they had visited had rebelled after the fall of Zeus and some Jaffa had decided to destroy the humans who dared stand against a god. This one was different it had more advanced stone work and there was the remains of sky scrapers all of whom looked as if they had taken the force of a nuclear blast but at some distance.

"General Carter, I would say this is the place," said a British Royal Marine Lieutenant as he stood beside the American General.

"I would have to disagree with you," countered Carter as she looked at her palm-sized computer.

"Why is that?" inquired the Lieutenant as he looked to where the humanoid Cylon models moved around the remains of a beach looking at the skeleton remains. Alongside them where teams from the ship all equipped to pull any DNA from those bones. With luck, they would find some and if they matched the basic outlines of Cylons they could then try to find enough for the Cylons to grow a new population. "Those Cylons sure seem to think this is the place."

"And I would too but the radiation is wrong, they said it was a nuclear explosion but the background radiation is closer to what ancient weapons used." explained General Carter "No this isn't their Earth."

"Could they be mistaken?" inquired the Lieutenant "I mean no disrespect but what would an ancient weapon look like going off at a distance?"

"Not sure, never seen one in person the Ancient database said it was a blinding flash of light followed by a…." General Carter shut up as she felt like slapping her head. She had done it again, missed clear easy answer, which was right in front of her. She had lost count of the times Jack had done that to her while he was commander of SG1 for all those years. "You are right Lieutenant; an Ancient Weapon going off could be mistaken as a nuclear explosion. But then how could an ancient weapon go off 2,000 years ago."

"The Goa'uld, don't they have a habit of messing with ancient technology?" inquired the Lieutenant

"Not likely this world was too advanced to already be under their control, if they had taken Earth all those years ago we would have been forced back technology to the Middle Ages at best." said General Carter as she lowered her voice. "No, more than likely whoever ruled this planet was messing around with ancient device and it blew up in their faces."

General Carter moved to hit her radio but it came alive before she could touch it.

"General Carter do you read me." said the Captain of the Daedalus class warship which sat in orbit.

"Captain I was about to contact you, what is the situation?" inquired Sam

"General, we have gotten a flash message from Valhalla, about 20 minutes ago a small colonial task group showed up in orbit and without any warning they carried out a nuclear strike." reported the Captain as Sam's eyes widened as she tried to process the information.

"Captain, please repeat." ordered General Carter

"General 20 minutes ago the Colonial Navy carried out a nuclear strike on Valhalla." confirmed the Captain.

"My God." said Sam as the Captain went on.

"Only one of the nukes went off but that one hit outside of Celin, we don't know the damage but it will be bad." said the Captain. "We currently don't have orders from high command but I am going to assume that we are going to war."

**The news media around the world flashed with news coming out of Valhalla, broadcasts was interrupted and billions of people stopped what they were doing to watch the news. **What they saw was some of the earliest images of a blinding flash of light and a rising mushroom cloud. The images where powerful and heart breaking, some of the images showed homes being blown away by the wind, images of the wounded and Tau'ri soldiers pulling survivors from the remains of their lives. The main image, which was shown repeatedly, was of a group of airborne soldiers from America and China rising up a flagpole with the Tau'ri flag flapping behind it. In the distance the base of the mushroom cloud could be seen along with the remains of destroyed buildings. The image was similar to the flag raising on Iwo Jima by the United States Marine and the flag raising done by the fire fighters at ground zero after the attack on the World Trade Centers on 9/11/2001. It filled the people of the world with anger and rage. Within moments, those same people were outraged and demanding war.

"Well that didn't take long." said the President of the United States as he and the other world leaders gathered in the oval office, most of the counter parts had only awoke less then half an hour ago and so the a large amount of coffee and tea sat on the coffee table in the center of the room.

"We have reports that even at one in the morning red square is filling up with people," stated the Russian President who was rubbing sleep from his eyes, even as he was drinking a large cup of coffee.

"I have ordered our military to go on alert, I don't expect anything but it will make the people feel better." explained the Chinese Premier.

"I have done the same," confirmed the US President, besides the Brazilian President he was the most awake. All the other calls had come either early in the morning or just before midnight for London.

"So I believe we are all agreed that we are going to war," said the French President as the others around the table nodded their heads in agreement. "Now the real question is can we win this war?"

"Right off the bat, no." admitted the Russian President as he light a smoke to wake himself up. The President of the western nations glared at him for lighting up inside but let it pass, it was more important to have the President wake up. "Most of our forces are off in the Pegasus front, we only have a handful of ships anyhow while the colonial fleet numbers in the thousands."

"But our ships are far above them when it comes to technology." countered the Indian President "One of ours has to equal 20 or 30 of their ships."

"This is true, but if you have one guy with a machine gun and he is going up against a thousand guys with bolt action rifles the guy with the machine gun will fall." explained the Russian President "That is looking only at ships; they also outnumber us greatly when it comes to men, material and the means of production. What we have is technology and distance on our side these buy us time while we build and prepare."

"Are you saying we can't beat these Colonials?" inquired the British Prime Minister

"Not at all, I am saying we can't beat them right away. We need to build more ships, we need to retool factories to make the weapons and most of all we need to train new soldiers and pilots how to use those weapons," explained the Russian President.

"The people will want to strike back right away." stated the German Chancellor

"We will strike back but what we can't do is go toe to toe with their whole fleet right away." explained the Russian President "We need to get into a war fitting first."

"Ok, but we still have to counter attack." countered the American President

"How about a nuclear strike?" offered the Chinese Premier "We take a few of their cities off the map,"

"Sorry but I don't think the public will be behind a nuclear counter strike on civilians." said the Brazilian President "Maybe on military targets but not civilians."

"Agreed." confirmed French President

"Very well, that may be too much for most of the people to take. So what should our move be?" inquired the Chinese Premier

"I believe we should follow the same movies that the Americans did at the start of World War II against Japan." offered the British PM "We go after their shipping, do hit and runs against their shipping, special forces strikes and other soft targets while we build up our forces."

"I like it." said the American President "I believe we should have our top military personal go over plans for a counter attack."

"Agreed, but if memory serves we have some of their observers in Pegasus, do we arrest them as POWs?" inquired the Brazilian President

"We should but they may be more useful in another way," offered the British PM as the others looked at her. "We can use them to carry a message to their government about how we except POWs to be treated, because sooner or later they may have some of our POW just like we have theirs."

"Besides legally I don't think we can hold them, the judges would have a field day debating if we can. We did give them safe conduct when they came with us, they are basically diplomats." explained the Indian President as he raised his hand. "I know that the colonials arrest O'Neill and is currently surrounding our mission, but the judges will not see it that way."

"Alright but another issue we have to decide is do we go after those ZPMs, they are holy objects to the Colonials but if they figure out what they can do a lot of the edges we hold over them go out the window." stated the German Chancellor "Personally I think we should take them."

"Wouldn't us taking them reinforce their will to go to fight?" inquired the French President "It would be as if someone robed the Vatican or Mecca?"

"True, but no objects there can be used to generate power," countered the Indian President "We need those under our control."

"We have prepared for this, multiple Special Forces ranging from the American Delta force to Russian Spetsnazs have been training to take these ZPMs." explained the Russian President. "We could likely have them in place within hours. Problem is if one or more of the teams would fail then they would know that we want those ZPMs and they become a strong focus of study."

"This would be something to avoid." Stated the Chinese Premier

"Yes, but luckily the Colonials religious habits will play into our hands." reported the Russian President with a grin. "See the Colonials have a tradition of placing items of religious importance like these ZMPs in a safe location during wars."

"We would do the same thing so?" inquired the American President it would be just as hard to get into 12 bunkers as 12 temples, maybe harder.

"They put them all in the same spot." said the Russian President with a grin. "Someplace on Sagittaron, they called the Safe box of Zeus. Maybe they picked Sagittaron because it's pantheon god is Zeus or because all the mountains and caves provide a lot of hiding spots."

"So we let them gather the ZPMs for us and then we take it all at once." Stated the American President "I sense a but in there."

"There is a small issue, we don't know where this safe box is on Sagittaron but here we have a move as well." said the Russian President. "When they transport one or more of the ZPMs we can attached a tracer or better yet replace it with a fake. We can track and it will lead us to the location of the others."

"I like it." Said the German leader "It may mean we hold back on attacking their shipping, we don't want to spoke them into not transporting the ZPMs but it is worth it to hold back."

"I am not sure this is the right move," added the Brazilian President "We are messing with their religion that may harm any chance for a peace once this war comes to an end."

"Isn't Valhalla their holy world of Kobol? The same religious people will fight until they get Valhalla under their control, it is like the Israelis and Palestinian fighting over who got Jerusalem until the Treaty of Moscow but on a planet size scale." Stated the Chinese's Premier as everyone nodded their heads, all of them had their hands in that treaty in some way or another. "It will not matter much if we take those ZMPs."

The President of the United States looked around the room; besides the President of Brazil and the French President, everyone else was nodding their heads to take the ZPM.

"Alright, have the special forces make their plans." ordered the President of the United States. "Next is who gets to make the official announcement, the way I read it is that the President of the Tau'ri high council in this case myself makes the official announcement."

"I have no problem but I do plan to make my own announcement for my people that we are going to war." stated the Russian President.

"So am I." added the Chinese Premier as the others nodded their heads.

"I have spoken with a handful of leaders from member nations and even some who are not members and they all want to declare war for their nation." said the British PM "In fact if I am not mistaken New Zealand is going to do it in about an hour."

"I believe the best move would be for everyone to declare war and then have the United States be the last one," offered the Chinese Premier as the American President raised an eyebrow. "I say this for two reasons, one it is already getting late here so it will take more time to get all your leaders to congress and I don't see you declaring war at around midnight. Secondly since you are the current President of the Tau'ri Council it may be for the best for you to give the final word."

"Very well, I will inform the public that I will address a joint session of congress tomorrow morning," said the President of the United States

"Now I recommend that we all head back to our own capitals to prepare our speaks and give our military time to get more information." offered the British PM as everyone nodded their heads. Within moments, everyone had disappeared in a flash of light leaving the President alone in his office. He paused for a moment before moving around his desk and pressing a small button.

"Mr. President." said a voice from a small speaker in the video phone.

"Rachel, get me the Speaker tell him I need to have a joint session of congress tomorrow around 11 am and prepare a press release to the same effect." ordered the President

**Light years away from Earth a phone began ringing on the desk of Doctor Woolsey. **Richard looked at the phone for a moment letting it ring, and then he quickly grabbed it and lifted it to his ear.

"Doctor Woolsey."

"Good evening Doctor Woolsey." said President Adar with a smirking tone that made even the seasoned diplomat want to strangle him.

"Good evening Mr. President," answered Woolsey keeping his voice perfectly calm. "How can I help you today?"

"Well I was hoping that you would come to a speech I am giving before the Quorum tomorrow." Said President Adar "Don't worry I will sign a Presidential order allowing you free passage so you can't be arrested if you come to the Quorum building. I would really appreciate if you come to tomorrow."

"Let's stop beating around the bush Mr. President we both know what you're going to announce tomorrow." said Woolsey still hiding his total anger.

"Yes, judging from your voice I can tell you're unnerved," said Adar as he took a breath. "I hope that now that our fleet has arrived over your colony and delivered our message that we can move on."

"Yes, we have entered a new phase of our relationship." lied Woolsey as an idea crossed his mind. He quickly checked his computer to double check and there he saw the message from Earth with the time of the President's address. "Tell me when is your speech to the Quorum?"

"Well I have it scheduled for two in the afternoon," answered Adar as Woolsey smiled a bit.

"If I could advise you, it may be for the best if you push that up to 10 your time," advised Woolsey "See the President of the United States is going to give a speech about your fleet's arrival at Valhalla at 11 your time and I have orders to broadcast it."

"Really?" inquired Adar as Woolsey did a quick prayer hoping that Adar would fall into the trap. "No offense but I want to be the one to announce the arrival of our fleet at Kobol and the new phase of our relationship. Could you push your president's speech back?"

"I am afraid not," said Woolsey

"Well it is easily enough to push my speech up, I can say it is needed to fit your president's speech." said Adar with warmth in his voice. "Maybe I can even have your President's speech played right after mine in the Quorum hall. What do you think?"

"That is your call," answered Woolsey "I was going to make the arrangement to with the media."

"No…no I'll take care of that. I better get going to make the arrangement. Goodnight Doctor Woolsey." said Adar as he hung up not knowing he had played right into Woolsey's hands.

**Well I hope you liked this chapter and the setup, which I am doing for the speeches. I would like to thank everyone who reviewed. I have never gotten so many reviews for a single chapter and I am touched that you would all enjoy my story so much. Thank you. Now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	31. Chapter 31

**Chapter 31 Battle of Sera**

Space ripped open as multiple tunnels of light filled the black void, out of those tunnels appeared multiple strange ships. The largest of the ships was just under three thousand meters and was shaped unlike any colonial ship that the observers had ever seen. They were shaped like a strange filled in V, around it were smaller ships clearly made by the same race.

"What are those?" inquired Lee Adama as more tunnels of light opened up and more ships arrived. Within moments, there was six Hive ships plus escorting ships. In total, there was almost seventy seven Wraith ships.

"Wraith Hive ships." said Major Smith as he looked at his holographic map. The table showed that the Wraiths where launching fighters and within moments the different groups where shooting at each other. The beams of light from their weapons filled the black void, explosions began going off as the ships fought each other. "Good they are fighting each other."

"Why are they doing that? I thought they were all Wraiths?" inquired Lieutenant Valerii

"They are but they are not all part of the same faction and as far as they know there is only so much food on Sera to go around." stated Major Smith "It is like prides of lions fighting over the some killed Zebra. There is just a certain amount of food to go around and the more Wraiths the less human life force each get. Either way let them fight there are two more Wraith Hive ships and their escorts about ten minutes out, if they destroy each other then it saves us some work."

"If your enemies are fighting among themselves do nothing and build your forces." Said Captain Adama as Major Smith looked at him. "It's from a Tauron General who fought in the last World War on Tauron."

"Sounds like something Sun Tzu would have said in the art of war but that was over two thousand years ago." said Major Smith before shrugging "But war never changes, it just gets worse."

"True." Confirmed Adama as a massive explosion of light came through the window.

"Sir, one the Hive ships was just destroyed and it appears that those who had been loyal to that Queen has joined with the larger force of three hive ships." reported an officer as Major Smith nodded his head.

"I see, well that can't be helped." stated Major Smith as he looked at the Colonials. Seeing their confusing he decided to explain. "See the Wraiths have Queens which each group follows and their males always want to be following a Queen. Also in a sort of twisted natural selection, if one Queen kills another then the Wraiths which where loyal to that Queen goes over to the Queen who had just killed their Queen they can't stand to be without a Queen over them."

"There goes another Hive ship leaving the smaller force with only one," reported another officer as a beeping sound filled the air. "Damn that Queen got luckily she destroyed the Hive ship with the Queen, the other one is standing down and surrendering."

"Damn." cursed Major Smith as he looked at the holographic map. Six hive ships had come in split among three queens, one with three hive ships, one with two hive ships and one with only one. He had hoped to bring the number of ships down to only two or three hive ships but now a single queen had four hive ships. There was still another group of two hive ships plus escorts due to arrive with a fourth Queen. "How long until the last two hive ships show up?"

"Five minutes sir." reported another officer as a ding filled the air. "We have another intercept of Wraith radio broadcast."

"Well?" inquired Major Smith

"Sir, the Queen on the Hive already here is telling everyone not fire." reported the officer "She said her sister Queen is approaching and together they will feast on the humans below."

"So looks like we will have to go up against five hive ships plus their escorts," stated Major Smith as he looked at the holographic map. "That realizes the total number of ships that the Wraiths have to 107 to our 48."

"Well we wanted better but we planned for this," stated Major Smith as he tapped on a small control panel on the command table. The holographic image they had been watching of the Wraith ships fighting disappeared only to be replaced by a full body image of General Shepard.

"General Shepard, this is Major Smith at Firebase Alpha, the Wraiths are forming up and will begin their assault in about five minutes." reported Major Smith

"Understood we will get everything moving here." stated General Shepard as he stood on the command center for the fleet. Since the Missouri and the other capital ships would be needed for the fight, the command ship was located inside an Archimedes class science ship located behind the lines.

**Onboard the Archimedes science had been pushed to the side and all the tool that ship had was geared for war.** Standing around a massive holographic table, which showed the up to the second location of every ship in the system was General Shepard and other high-ranking officers.

"The Wraith have no idea that we are here and we are going to make them pay," stated General Shepard as he looked around at the other officers who had gathered together to coordinate the complex operation. "We have spent almost 10 months preparing for this; we all know our jobs and our roles in the greater operation. If we do this right, we can cut the total force of the Wraith in half and then we will do something that not even the Ancients did. We will defeat the Wraith and liberate the galaxy that they have feasted on for thousands of years."

"Yes, sir." Said a younger officer

"It is time to start," ordered General Shepard as the Wraiths ships began to move toward the Planet surface. A head of the capital ships was a swarm of Darts; they locked onto what they believed to be the major population centers.

All the commanders watched the holographic map as the entire nuclear missile force that the natives of Sera had spent an entire generation building flew into the sky. The missiles which were very similar to missiles used by the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1970's which worked for the Tau'ri since it allowed them to fit them into their battle plan. The missiles flew up toward the darts, the warheads exploded one after. The explosion of so many warheads caused hundreds of darts to break away from their attack on the planet which was part of the job in the plan as a whole. With all the radiation that had been released by the bombs it mess with the Wraith sensors so that they could not tell that the planet size meal that they had fought over was actually all but empty.

As a side effect was that the amount of Radiation in the atmosphere was preventing the Darts from safely diving down toward the planet. Since they believed that the people were trapped down below the pilots were in no rush to enter the high radiation.

**Back on the hidden moon base, Major Smith along with the other Tau'ri in the forward command center watched the holographic table which was the beating heart of their part of the operation.** For his part, Captain Adama had moved to the window and watched with amazement as these Alien ships moved into a position over an alien world. Four of the ships where truly massive, as large as any battlestar with countless smaller ships in support. The fleet was then joined by another smaller fleet raising the grand total of the Hive ships to six. They filled the limited view that the three colonials had of the world of Sera, their dark outlines against the blue green world caused a shiver of fear down

"Damn look at all them." admitted Sharon "I hope they don't find us down here."

"I don't think that is the plan of the Tau'ri." Stated Doctor Baltar as he looked away from the ships right in front of them to the barrels of hidden guns and missile launchers, which were rising up, and turning toward the Wraith fleet.

"They are in the kill box, lets show them that we are here." explained Major Smith from behind them. There was a pause for a moment, which seemed to last forever. "Gun barriers open fire."

Seconds later the ground trembled below their feet as the Tau'ri began to open fire on the ships from the hidden moon base. Missiles followed behind the inbound shells and at the same time more hidden guns and missiles opened up on the Wraith from Sera's second moon. They all flew toward their targets, which had no idea that they were under attack from behind.

**At that same moment line of 22 Tau'ri condor bombers came out of hyperspace, they had remained hidden from the Wraiths by distance and the stealth coating on the haul of their ships**. They moved off into two flights of 11 bombers each, each bomber had a rather simple but important mission. The Wraith Darts while one on one not the equal of a Tau'ri Eagle fighter could overwhelm the Tau'ri with pure numbers. Luckily, the main weapon of the dart was energy based meaning they could only hit targets right in front of them and only in short range. The missiles that every Eagle carried proved to be highly efficient against them but each Eagle could only carry eight missiles and only four of them where long range missiles. While a bomber the condor could be equipped with long-range missiles under their long wings and their bomb bays could be filled with missiles as well. Eighteen of the condor bombers carried 36 missiles each for a grand total of 648 long-range missiles. The remaining four condors carried only 12 missiles each but unlike their more numerous cousins these 48 missiles where tipped with Nequadah enhanced nuclear warheads.

Before the Wraiths even knew they were there, the Condors rippled fire their missiles sending them flying toward the mass of Wraith Darts, which was swarming over the planet waiting for the radiation from the nuclear explosions to dissipate before diving into the atmosphere. Detected the incoming missiles as the Wraith communication channels came alive with chatter as the Wraiths on the ships warned the darts about the inbound threat. They had not expected a fight in space apart from each other and most importantly, they had not expected to find themselves in the location they were now. They had missiles coming at them almost all sides and there was simply too many for the Wraiths to deal with. To the amazement of both the Colonials and the Wraiths the bulk of the missiles where not targeted on the Wraith ships but on the Darts.

"**Well they know we are here," stated an officer behind the colonials as the missiles and shells flew through space.** They found there marks and to the amazement of the Colonials the darts seemed to be the main targets, a lot of them became mini torches in space as they gave a slight glow before exploding. There where multiple blinding flashes but once again they seemed focused on the Darts and not the larger ships. Instead, there was multiple smaller explosions as shells hit the haul of ship.

"What good could shells do against something like that?" inquired Sharon "Why not hit them with everything you got?"

"The shells are not designed to kill those ships, well not right away anyhow." stated Major Smith as he walked over and looked at the effects as the darts where being pummeled by the missiles and guns kept firing shells. "See unlike almost every space traveling race the Wraith don't have shields they rely on living bio hauls. They can take the same amount of damage as a shield but regrow itself."

"They have living ships?" inquired Sharon "That is impossible."

"I think we are already seeing the impossible." Countered Baltar

"Yes all their technology is based on living tissue." Stated Major Smith "The Ancients found out too late a great weakness in the technology but we rediscovered it."

"And what is that?" inquired Sharon

"It's living Tissue, so we found a way to give it cancer." laughed Major Smith as the Colonials blink. "Every shell that hits their haul is actually filled with shards of cancer inducing agents which in a matter of minutes cause key functions of the ships to go down as tumors begin to grow. Normally it starts with their FTL, sensors and flight controls. Either way we have them trapped here."

Onboard the Hive ships a group of pale-skinned Wraiths where at the controls as their queen stood behind them. It was a scene that any horror director in either Hollywood or in the 12 Colonies of Kobol would die to have in their movie, however here the monsters where real.

"So the humans of Sera are more advanced than we thought, no matter a few space ships and a moon base isn't anything to worry about." Said the Queen as alarms began going off. The Queen spun her head toward the sound her long blood red hair flying as she moved her head toward the male at the controls. "Report."

"Multiple hyperspace windows are opening." stated the Wraith as he moved his hand around on the bio control. His eyes widened as the information came in. "My Queen we have Lanteans ships coming out of FTL, they must have somehow discovered where were coming here."

"They are fools we have a hundred and seven ships, we can easily win against their small ships." stated the Queen as she flicked her wrist to show how easy it should be.

"How many ships?" inquired another male, the one operating the weapon controller computer.

"I have 48 ships split up into three smaller groups each of whom are coming in on use from multiple attack vectors," reported the sensors operator as another alarm went off. "Four of the ships are almost as large as a hive ship. I am also detecting a new smaller ship of a class we have never seen before, likely a destroyer class giving their positions in the fleets. I also have new larger fighters in addition to their normal aircraft."

"Show me." ordered the Queen

"It shall be done at once." Said the Wraith as he touched a few controls and the image of a group of sixteen ships appeared on the screen. Two of the ships where massive and clearly they served the same role as a Hive ship for the Lanteans or as they been calling themselves lately the Tau'ri. One of the larger ships stayed back which confused the Queen for a moment until she noticed that it was slightly different design and that a lot fighters taking off from the ship. In fact the space around Sera was now full of Tau'ri fighters and larger bombers.

"We have walked into an ambush." snared one of the Wraiths as he showed his teeth.

"We shall have to do something about that," stated the Queen "Switch all power not needed for haul regeneration to weapons and order the fleet to attack the center force. Ignore everything else."

The Wraith in charge of damage control went to give the orders from his own computer only to find the controls not working.

"Is something wrong?" inquired the Queen in a sickly sweet voice.

"Nothing that can be fixed my Queen, likely a bad connection." stated the Wraith as he moved away from his computer to the wall where the computer was linked by a bio cable the ships computer system which ran through the ship like a nervous system in a living being. He expected the find a small break in the cable, it was known to happen but instead what he found was a greenish yellow plus coming out of the cable. He pulled out a small computer and began to scan the strange item to figure out what it could be. He though he knew what it could be but the ship had not been out in space long enough.

"We have a problem, the ship is responding sluggishly." stated the Wraith in charge of flight controls.

"We have a major problem look at this." Said the Wraith standing over the plus, the other males on the bridge along with the Queen turned and looked at him. "The ship's Biosystems are breaking down."

"What do you mean?" inquired the Queen, all Wraiths new that if a Wraith ship spent too much time out in space the living matter which formed the backbone of the ship began to break down because of all the radiation the ship got traveling through space. That was one of the main reasons the ships where landed whenever the crew hibernated, even though it opened them up to possible ground attacks. "That cannot be the case."

"My Queen we are getting reports from all over the fleet the same thing is happening to multiple ships." Stated the Wraith manning the communication system. "The damn humans must have found a way to do this to our ships."

"Kill them, all." cursed the Queen.

**Out in space multiple flights of Eagles formed up into eight aircraft squadrons based on nationality.** In the lead formation of Eagles where four fighters from the American Carrier USS Yorktown formed up.

"Alright check in." said flight leader Captain Bartlet as they moved toward the oncoming Wraith Darts. "And make it fast kids."

"Edge, right under your wing flight lead." Said Lieutenant Kei Nagase as the Japanese American pilot moved her aircraft into attack formation. Following tradition dating back to World War 2, whenever an American pilot hand was on their bird they either went by their call sign or their squadron name.

"Razgriz checking in sir." Said the number three in the flight, Lieutenant Adler as he rocked a little in his seat making sure his seat was right. "This is a long way from flying Raptors, Wardog."

"Yes, it is." Confirmed the flight lead

"Ghost checking in I am here to." said Airman Kyle Grim as he moved up to the left of Razgriz's aircraft.

"Alright stick together and take down as many of those suckers as you can." ordered Captain Bartlet "They don't have missiles so use that."

It took them a moment as the fighters got into position, and once they were in formation it was key for them to remain in that position for the moment. The pilots of the Eagles knew why and they watched to make sure that they did not get in the way. A few of them looked over their shoulders, behind them where the glowing green dots. A second there was a blinding flash of green light as a beam of energy shot straight out of the front of the three Battleships. Two of the three beams hit two of the hive ships while the third beam speared two cruisers with a single hit all four ships hung in space for a moment before going up.

"Damn look at that." stated Ghost space filled with light from the ships going up.

"Pay attention, the ships will be too busy for beam out if we are shot down," ordered Razgriz as his sensors began to beep telling him he was getting in range. The tone in his earphones quickly told him he had a lock on one the darts flying toward them. He flicked his weapons board and selected a long-range slammer and waited. He did not have to wait long as the order to fire came and almost as one all the flights of Eagle fighters let loss on their enemy with the slammer missile. The Wraith who lacked any missile system had to wait until they got closer to fire and some of them did not get a chance as they exploded in balls of light. The Eagles fired again with the same results but by then the Wraith where close enough to fire back and so a massive dogfight of hundreds of fighters on each side started.

**Watching this all happen from the safety of the command center was the Colonials, they couldn't believe what they were seeing as the smaller and faster Tau'ri ships moved in to engage the smaller Wraith ships with the same beams of light which had taken down entire battlestars with a single blow.** Here the Wraith ships took multiple blows and returned fire with their own weapons which had to be almost as powerful. To make it even more amazing the Tau'ri ships where moving at speeds even Vipers would have trouble keeping up with.

"Why are some of their shields close to their ships while others surround them like a bubble?" inquired Doctor Baltar as he watched the battle which was taking place in front of him.

"That is what you're asking?" inquired Sharon as two Wraith ships blew up in a giant fireball. "Focus on things more important than that."

**Back at the command center, General Shepard watched the holographic table, which showed the real time location of every ship in the fight.** His fist tightened a bit in rage as he watched the display which marked an Eagle fighter disappear. He wanted to be out there, he wanted to be in one of the Eagles or in a jumper. He would even take command of one of the ships, he wanted to be out their in the mix not back behind the lines where the worse that would happen to him physically was a burned from spilling too hot coffee on him. However deep down he knew that being back here was for the best, it was his job to command and that is what he was going to do.

"Order the INS Delhi back she is taking too many hits to their shields, order the Napoleon forward along with the Missouri and the Long Chun forward." ordered General Shepard as the Indian Warship began to pull back away from the battlefield. She was not alone other ships where falling back and three of his ships where dead in space and one was totally gone. Even so the Wraiths where falling fast and the numbers of ships where getting a lot closer to being even and once the Tau'ri had the edge on numbers then they would be unstoppable.

**On board the Wraith hive ship the crew was rushing around trying to get control as multiple problems all happened at once almost all of which came from whatever the Tau'ri did to their ships.** The sensors where not updating slowly so almost half the shots the ship fired hit nothing at all. Then there was the fact that the haul was not growing back at the right rate or in some points not at all.

"We just lost three more ships," cursed a Wraith at communication. "We are now even number wise with the enemy."

"The humans are sending in three of those larger ships," reported the sensor operator.

"Focus all fire on those ships." ordered the Queen as another explosion rocked the ship.

"Maybe it is time you consider getting off this ship," advised another Wraith to the Queen. Before the Queen could make her choice a beam of energy shot through the ship almost right behind her and the bridge was engulfed in fire for a split second before the Queen and the other Wraiths where sucked out into the vacuum of space.

**Out in the void of space, the Eagle fighters were throwing it down with the Wraith darts and thanks to their use of missiles which had a longer range and could adjust their flight they had delivered a massive opening blow**. Even so there was only a certain amount of missiles that the Eagle carried and their where more wraiths darts then missiles. Because of this the Eagles had to get in close and finish off the enemy with their built in rail guns.

"Edge you have a enemy right behind you." said Razgriz as he looked down through a gap in what used to be a Wraith cruiser toward one of his squadron mates. Seeing an opening Razgriz dove his Eagle through the massive hole that had been blown in Wraith ship, he pushed his engines to the max as he powered through the remains of the ship.

"I see him." said Edge as she looked over her shoulder at the Wraith Dart, which was firing at her. She spun her Eagle in a roll and moved behind a downed Hive ship. The dart was about to chase her when the rail gun on Razgriz's Eagle fighter opened up filling space with golden shells which crossed right in front of the Path of the Dart causing it to explode in a fireball.

**Onboard the Chinese Battleship Long Chun Senior Colonel Sung sat as the officers under her command went into battle against the Wraith.** The Long Chun which translated into Spring Dragon was a lot bigger and more powerful than her first ship the Daedalus class Sun Tzu but the tactics remained generally the same.

"How long until we can fire again?" inquired Colonel Sung as the ship rocked a bit from a blow to the shield which it took with ease.

"90 seconds?" stated the weapons officer as Colonel Sung eyes narrowed a bit, she knew that it was not the officer's fault it was the fact this was the Tau'ri attempt to duplicate an Ancient Weapon.

"Senior Colonel we have multiple incoming Darts." said one of the radar operators.

"Are they in drone range?" inquired Colonel Sung

"Yes." confirmed the Weapons officer.

"Then show them what we can do." ordered Colonel Sung. "Release the Drones."

Across the ship mostly along the back and bottom sliding doors opened up to show multiple tubes all sitting straight down into the ship. At first nothing happened then came a swarm of drones, unlike their ancient counterparts these drones where slightly bigger and where not as fast, the Tau'ri had not learned how to fully reproduce Ancient Technology. They still severed the purpose they were designed for an unlike their ancient counter parts they were able to be controlled without the Ancient Gene and most importantly they could be massed produced. The other Battleships followed suit as they fired their drones which hunted down the Wraith Darts and any ships that got close enough for them to engaged.

"**They are so beautiful," stated Sharon as she watched the Tau'ri press forward from the safety of the moon base**. That is when she noticed that the ground was not shaking anymore. That meant that the weapons on the moon where not firing, the Tau'ri forces where pushing forward driving the remains of the Wraith ships back toward the planet.

"We have our first ship crash!" yelled an officer behind her as she turned to look at the holographic table. The image of Sera floated above the screen and it showed a Wraith ship on one of the land masses. She watched as a second ship followed the first but this one crashed into the water in the middle of the ocean, if anyone was left alive on that ship they wouldn't be much longer. "There goes another one."

"They are forcing them down onto the planet why?" inquired Baltar

"Because they are going to turn it into a prison." said Adama as his mind worked through it. Wraith are people and there was no people down on the planet. In time they would either have to eat each other or die, once a long enough time passed there would only be one Wraith left and they could retake the plant with no trouble. They even had moon-based weapons to fire down on any large grouping of Wraiths.

**While Lee, Sharon and Doctor Baltar where off world watching the movement of the Tau'ri ships Lieutenant Karl Agathon was back in Atlantis looking at the Tau'ri from a different point of view.** While traveling between the galaxies he could not do much so he spent most of his time watching the Tau'ri TV shows to gain an understanding of their culture, well that was what he would tell the higher-ranking officers when he got home. Now he was doing something else.

"Now this is these are the two standard pistols we currently use," said Sargent Kimhi as he pointed toward the two pistols which where lied out on the table before him. One was smaller and judging from the magazine which was sitting below it fired a smaller round then the larger pistol. Sargent picked up the smaller pistol. "This is brand new P310 it fires 14, 9mm round. Now the other pistol is a going back a little bit in the past over a hundred years in fact. This is a modernized M1911 pistol and it fires 45 caliber round, only eight rounds but when the person gets hit they stay down. If I was going to go up against a Wraith I would carry this."

"I have seen a lot of your people carrying that," stated Karl as he picked up the heavy pistol.

"Now let's look at the rifles, I will not show you all the rifles each nation still has as their standard rifles." stated Sargent Kimhi "We are still in the process of transitioning from all the different rifles to the new SR-15."

The rifle did not look much different then some of the weapons that the colonial military used, the main difference was unlike most of the Colonial rifles which had a magazine built into the shoulder stock this one had a long magazine located in front of the trigger. Because of this the SR-15 had a folding stock something that their colonial counterpart couldn't have. He picked up the rifle and instantly noticed that the rifle was a lot lighter. He moved the rifle around in his hand trying to figure out why it was so much lighter.

"Something wrong?" inquired Sargent Kimhi

"Your rifle is a lot lighter then I would think," admitted Karl

"Well we have a long history of making small arms, hell there are a 116 guns in the United States for every 100 Americans." laughed the Israeli Sargent "But I am one to talk, my nation has mandatory military membership."

"Also I see how you cut down on a lot of weight," stated Karl as he tilted the gun to a side to show the side to Sargent Kimhi. "On our rifles we have two solid steal rods which run up each side of the gun, with a solid steal but plate with cushions to stop it from breaking the shooters shoulder when fired."

"Why would you do that?" inquired Sargent Kimhi as he tried to think of why that design would be practical. "That would add unneeded weight."

"Because if push comes to shove." explained Karl as she flipped the gun over and grabbed it by the barrel so it was held like a club. "Because if you're out of ammo and have a charging Cylon Centurion coming at you a gun with steel reinforcement will hold up a lot better than whatever you have made this out of. Our traditional enemy is made out of metal not flesh."

Sargent Kimhi nodded his head before looking at the firing range. The range faced the open water in the southern most pier of Atlantis that way they could fire almost anything without hitting anything.

"So do you want to shot it?" inquired Sargent Kimhi as suddenly a group of Tau'ri soldiers came walking toward the two of them. All the soldiers where armed and to the amazement of Sargent Kimhi and Karl the soldiers raised their weapons and pointed them at Karl.

"You will come with us." ordered the highest ranking solider in the group.

"What is going on?" inquired Karl

"Your government carried out a nuclear strike on our colony of Valhalla," stated the Solider as Karl's eyes widened. "We are at War."

**On the mainland Teyla Shepard and the model Six humanoid Cylon pretending to be the human researcher Jenny Oldstone walked through one of the multiple small town markets.** Behind them marched two Tau'ri soldiers both of whom had their weapons out but lowered. This caused a few people to look up but they had seen this before whenever Teyla was showing the village to possibly dangerous visitor.

"This is such a lovely world." Said the Six as a group of small children ran down the cobblestone street.

"We have done a lot of work to get it this far." said Teyla as she looked at the buildings. "I was born in a tent; my people like so many others across the galaxy lived in tents or simple buildings to give the wraith as small of a target as possible. Buildings like this while possible was never attempted because they would draw the Wraith whenever they came."

"They were that big of a threat?" inquired the Six as if on que another child wearing a white mask came running down the street after the other children.

"That used to be more than a game, that was our life." explained Teyla "In our culture it was considered a rare that anyone could die of old age. Among the people of Earth that was taken for granted and maybe in time it will be the same here."

"I have a question are you a Tau'ri or an Athesian is it?" inquired the Six

"A little of both." admitted Teyla "I am Athesian by blood but thanks to my marriage to John I am a Tau'ri. My daughter is a Tau'ri by birth and my son got Tau'ri citizenship when John adopted him."

"I remember your son said that General Shepard was his adopted father on the Colonial news at the zoo." stated the Six "His father?"

"His father died, I like to blame the Wraith for his death and that is how everyone I know among my people see it but in some ways it could be said John killed him." Explained Teyla as the Six's eyes widened. "It's a long story but basically John shot down a Wraith Dart, which is their fighter that would have killed countless people in a village. The wreckage from the Dart crashed on top of my first husband."

"I see, I am sorry for your loss. I shouldn't have brought it up." Apologized the Six

"I still see him in my son, but I must admit I see more of John then I do of Kannan in him. Maybe because Jon has been his father since he was six years old." admitted Teyla "Also my people, everyone in this galaxy in truth has gotten used to death having people remarry and raise the children of people taken by the Wraith is common."

"I wonder if my people will." Admitted the Six "I talked to that Doctor of yours Jennifer Keller, she said that in a couple of years the clone body which holds me together will fall apart."

"The Tau'ri have seen that before." confirmed Teyla "Hopefully that mission with General Carter will find what you need to get more humanoid Cylons and start a new race."

"Hopefully and once those new Cylons are grown we can start building a pure Cylon race." stated the Six as she paused and looked around the city. "We are still far away from that, we need to find the DNA then we need to grow the copies from childhood to adulthood. They wouldn't have memories so transferring an already existing mind to them can't be done."

"I hadn't thought of that?" admitted Teyla "So you actually had a childhood?"

"Yes, I had to learn everything but then once I reached a certain age I was ready to start downloading into new bodies." explained the Six "I will have to download at least one more time, I will be too old to have any children if I have to wait for the newly grown Cylons to grow into maturity. That is if we can have kids."

"Why would that be an issue?" inquired Teyla

"I am a clone, I am not sure a clone can have children." explained the Six as Teyla grinned.

"One of my friends is a Clone who has three children with his wife," said Teyla "I am sure we can help you with that if needed."

Suddenly the radio of one of the solider walking behind the two women came alive; he dropped back a bit so that the two women could not hear. He talked for a few moments before coming up and raising his weapon at the Six.

"What is this all about?" inquired Teyla surprised by the action taken by the guard.

"Sorry, but the Colonials carried out a nuclear strike on Valhalla." stated the guard, like most he didn't know that the six was actually a Cylon. "We have orders to take all of them in."

"The Colonial Navy carried out an attack on your colony?" inquired Six not really believing what she was hearing.

**Back in Atlantis Priestess Adrianna was in the room that the Tau'ri had given her; she had not left in days. **She had no interest in walking around a city, which should have been impossible. Instead, she spent her days and nights reading the holy scrolls and early Tau'ri history. She was looking for something anything that could explain how their earth cousins could believe what they did. She was convinced that they had to be lying that the Tau'ri had forgotten some part of their history.

Her hopes were dashed at every turn, she found that the Faith of the Lords of Kobol was only focused on one part of Earth in the distance past and there were older known religions. She moved forward into more modern Tau'ri history and with each step she took she grew more sickened. In the colonies wars where rare and relativity short it was the opposite on Earth where wars where long and bloody. The Tau'ri lost 80 million people in their Second World War, which lasted six years, the colonials lost half of that in their longest and bloodiest war in the 12 year long Cylon War.

"I am not sure that we want these war crazy Tau'ri joining with us." said Priestess Adrianna to herself as suddenly the door to her room opened. She looked up as four armed men walked in with their weapons at the ready.

**The battle over Sera was nearing the end as the Eagle fighters were chasing down the last of the Wraith darts **

"I know one thing for sure, I don't want to go up against our cousins," stated Adama as Baltar nodded his head in agreement. Suddenly the sound of bullets being chambered came from behind them. They turned to see the same Tau'ri which had been laughing and joking with them for days as they showed them around now had weapons on them.

"What the frak?" asked Sharon "What is going on?"

"Talk to your commanders, they are the ones who launched a nuclear attack on our colony." Said one of the armed men, as the Colonials eyes widened at the news.

**I know a lot of people wanted the Tau'ri to declare war this chapter but I hope that this chapter focused totally in the Pegasus galaxy will hold you all at bay. Now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75**


	32. Chapter 32

**Chapter 32 A Terrible Resolve**

General Jack O'Neill's body had no idea where it was, he had woken up in the guest room of the house his younger clone and his wife owned on Valhalla. He had looked forward to a day off, something he had too few of, his plans were to watch his granddaughter's soccer game and maybe spend some time watching football. The next day he was going to join in his younger self's surprise to the kids by telling them they were going to Disney world on Earth. Instead, Valhalla had come under nuclear attack from colonial forces and he found himself beamed to the Valhalla gate compound which was far outside of the blast area. Once there he traveled to the SGC and then a quick beam transport to the White House to stand in front of the President of the United States in Washington DC where he had to report that he had next to nothing new to report and that it would take some time to get the information. Finally he was transported to Tau'ri military Headquarters outside of Istanbul, Turkey.

The military Headquarters' of the Tau'ri was placed in Turkey because the big eight powers couldn't decide which one of them would house the military headquarters of their joint alliance so they went for a nation which was seen as a compromises. Almost the entire headquarters was underground and thanks to the Tok'ra tunnel crystals it had taken days instead of months to make. In fact the same technique was being used to make the underground intercontinental high speed train network which would connect key locations around the world.

General O'Neill walked into the command center to find high-ranking officers from almost every single Tau'ri nation gathered around a massive holographic table. While all nations had in a voice at this table the fifteen most powerful nations where really in command. Those nations of Australia, Japan, South Korea, China, India, Russia, Turkey, Saudi Araba, Israel, Germany, France, Great Britain, Brazil, Canada and the United States each had a General or an Admiral here to speak for their nation and to give their input on the coming war. It would be these fifteen powers which together made up bulk of the Tau'ri military which would direct the coming war.

"Gentlemen, Ladies." said General O'Neill as he moved to the table taking his seat, the others followed until their were all seated at the table. Around this table there where centers of combined experience and they were going to have to put it all to the test. "I will not mix words with you, we got caught with our pants down on Valhalla and because of that countless thousands of men, women and children have died."

"And many more will die in this coming war." said the British Admiral as he spun a spoon around in a teacup. "How is that these Colonials got through our defenses?"

"From what we have been able to learn unlike our hyper drive or any other we have encountered the Colonial FTL is capable of getting almost right into the Atmosphere of a planet," said the Japanese General who looked at the small computer in front of him. "In fact from what our researchers believe is true they even be capable of appearing within the Atmosphere of a planet, if any ship of our ships tried that then they would be torn apart from the sudden addition of the gravity from the planet. That is why we have to exit FTL away from a planet."

"And why we built all our defenses facing outwards, we expected an attack to come from that direction." said the Chinese Army General as he drank some Tea of his own. "That was foolish of us, but considering we didn't believe appearing that close to a planet was even possible it is understandable."

"Hard to explain that to the men and women who died" countered the German Air force General

"True, but our comrades in the PLA has a point." said General O'Neill as he tried to get the talk focused on something productive. "Now can we see the map of colonial control space."

With that, the lights dimmed a bit as the surface of the table began to glow, within seconds the image of four-star systems which were so close together that even the Asgard considered them the same system. In total there are twenty-three major world but only twelve of the planets where populated in mass. The worlds began to glow different colors red for the 12 major populated worlds, which held 89% of the population of the 12 colonies. The remaining 13 worlds, nine of them where highlighted in yellow showing the minor worlds which were mostly made up of mining centers and bio domes on the rocky mercury like planets closer to the four suns. These worlds held 8% of the remaining population of the colonies. The gas giants which were in the systems where highlighted in a white to display that these worlds where not populated. Outside the four major systems there where 36 other positions highlighted outside the major systems. These highlighted locations where small mining centers and colonial military outposts located outside the system. In total, these 36 smaller locations held less than 3% of the total population of the colonies.

"These are the 12 colonies of Kobol total population 41.5 billion people, that is over five times our population." stated the Indian General who had set the map up. "They hold the advantage over us in almost every field expect for technology and the firepower which comes from that. They have 4,500 warships which can be called up to serve in a war. Most of those ships are around 40 years old since that was their last war. Their most common ships are their Hoplite class ships, which are small 40 men crewed ships which serve as a border patrol and coast guard ships and only half of them have FTL drives. The backbone of the Colonial military is their battlestars."

A smaller image appeared in front of each of the seated generals and admirals. The image showed a mercury class colonial battlestar.

"Their battlestars are a cross between an aircraft carrier and a battleship." explained the Indian General "While this limits the effectiveness of a Battlestar in either the pure battleship or aircraft carrier roles, it does however give the Colonial Navy flexibility."

"They don't have shields," stated the Japanese Admiral

"No they do not, and our beam weapons have been shown to go straight through their ships in all cases but one." stated the Indian General "During our first contact with the Colonials the Ark Royal fired on the Battlestar Pegasus and the armor held better than the other colonial battlestars similar hit. The blow still breached the haul and disabled the ship but it didn't go straight through like it had done before."

"Any idea why this was the case?" inquired the Japanese Admiral as she leaned forward a bit.

"Not for sure, our best guess is that that part of the ship had heavier armor," admitted the Indian General.

"Talking about armor and battlestars we got an attack plan from the Akula over Caprica." said the Russian General "They want to beam into the double haul and place a nuclear warhead onboard the ships to go off when we declare war, they want our go ahead to carry out this plan."

"I see no reason why not." stated Jack he looked around the room seeing if the other Generals had a reason, surprising it was the Russian who raised one.

"My only issue is that Special Forces have formed a plan to steal the ZPM on Caprica and replace it with one that we can track. We don't want to overburden the Seals and the ZPM Is more important than destroying those battlestars." Said the Russian

"How will they replace the ZPM?" inquired General O'Neill

"The Akula has one of those Asgard replicators which can make almost anything, they also have images of the ZPM they will make a copy with a tracer. We will then follow it to where they bring the others." stated the Russian "Luckily the Temple where the ZPM is being held is closed, their version of a Pope is going to have a mass there after their President's speech. We will take the building, replace the ZPM and we even have a cover story for us taking the building. The only issue is that we will have to contact the mission on the ground to get what we need. The Seals could even use some of the Special Forces stationed there to do their mission."

The Russian General then laid out the plan causing Jack to nod his head in agreement, around the room every single general and admiral was doing something similar.

"Alright General give the order." ordered General O'Neill "Now besides our special forces what forces can we hit them with right away?"

"Not much." admitted the Turkish General "Too much of our force is in Pegasus dealing with the Wraith and I wouldn't want to take many ships away from the defense of Valhalla."

"Agreed what about Eagle strikes against shipping?" inquired the German General

"Eagles are while capable of hyperspace do not have the range to get to the major shipping lanes and back to Valhalla." admitted the Turkish General "We do have Condors we can load with missiles to take down targets. We can send Snow Owls in first to scout targets. The question are what are the rules of engagement?"

"Well warships are clearly fair game, but I believe for the moment we leave large civilian targets alone," ordered Jack "I don't want to blow up a cruise ship full of vacationers but cargo ships are free game."

"Understandable, will send it to Bomber command Valhalla." Said the Turkish General

"How soon can new ships be launched?" asked a Brazilian General

"From reports from General Raj-Sing it seems that workers in the shipyards all over Valhalla have come into work early. They want to vengeance Valhalla and he gave a large group the go ahead to start construction of the new large ship construction bays, they weren't going to start that for another three weeks." stated the Indian General "Same goes with workers in factories, but the more we move to Earth the better. Either way you look it will take time to build a true fleet large enough to take on the colonial numbers without too many dead on our side. That being said I would expect ships to start coming online faster and the more shipyards we build and the more workers we have building those ships the faster that day will come."

"When will the Bismarck or any other battleship be ready to launch?" inquired the German General, his nations battleship was the next due to launch.

"I do not know but with this I would expect it sooner than I had before," stated the Indian General

"I am not sure how much we can move to earth?" stated General O'Neill as he turned and looked at Canadian Marine general.

"The main issue is that so much of the technology when it comes to warships hauls and hyper drives require minerals not found in large amounts on Earth if at all." Stated the Canadian General "Those things cannot be moved from Valhalla with any great ease, but when it comes to Vehicles, personal weapons and other items we can easily do it here. The reason we had not was that we were hiding all the technology from the gate. That isn't a problem anymore."

"Alright let's get the industry here the information they need to get production the weapons we need. Start with the small arms industry, they will be the fastest into production." ordered General O'Neill

"What about putting Special Forces behind the line to strike at key targets and force them to spend resources at home while we get on a war footing?" asked the Israeli General

"I think that goes without saying, Special Force Command is already drawing up target lists," said the Russian General.

"You know, an idea just came to me if we really want to terrorize the Colonials we could send our a house guest to one of their worlds." said the Turkish General as multiple Generals and Admirals turned and looked at him. That idea had not crossed any of their minds; it was something that would have been unthinkable years ago.

"We will have to talk about that." said O'Neill as the talks moved forward.

**Four flashes of light filled the darkness as three human shaped figure and one large crate appeared in the void of space between the layers of armor on a colonial mercury class battlestar. **The three figures all belonged to the US Navy Seal and where all armed with the Special Forces Standard rifle. This rifle was shorter and more compact then the stand rifle which was used by regular military members of the Tau'ri and they had a built in sound suppress. They were also modified to allow firing in space. Even though they were inside the armor shell of the battlestar there was no gravity and the whole chamber had no oxygen.

In order to operate here they had put on the new space combat suit. In the past the old spacesuits had been bulky and took hours to put on and off. These suits were skintight and had more technology then any of the suits used by NASA and the other space programs could have dreamed of years ago. The suits started with the wearing pulling on what appeared on the outside to be a black wet suit, only this suit was capable of blocking radiation, keeping the body at the proper temperature and everything else a space suit needs to do with only a thin layer. The suit even had built in sensors, which would cut an area off with if a breach happened, the idea being it was better to lose an arm or leg then a life. Over that, the seals placed on their standard armor only with the addition of two air tanks located on the small of the back. These tanks which was only 12 inches wide each fit into the air lines which ran up to their helmets. With all this done the seals and anyone who happened to wear the suits where ready for a firefight in space.

"Clear." said one of the seals as he scanned the darkened cavern around him, he did not even turn on his flashlight trusting the built in night vision/heat vision on his helmet. The whole thing was only about ten feet wide with a slight curve, which matched the outer hull. The most dominate thing was the catwalk which moved through the space. Large beams could be seen all of them sat an equal distance apart like the ribs of a giant beast. There was a few lights but they were few and far apart.

"Alright give me a few minutes," said a second seal as he grabbed the floating 1-meter tall container holding the nuclear warhead. He quickly found a spot in this case it was behind an electrical box. To hide the box they seal removed a nearby light, so the box was shrouded in darkness. Once in place the seal typed in the arming code and like that the warhead was ready to go off on command. With that done, the three seals disappeared in flashes of light only to appear at the next matching location

**Down on Caprica Doctor Woolsey was wide awake, outside his window the crowds of protestors where still there. **The windows where blocked out with blackout curtains so that no one could look in, from the outside apart form the guards it looked no different. On the inside it was very different, demolition charges where being place, and equipment was being torn apart and destroyed. For the computers that they weren't taking with them they were in the process of first whipping the hard drives, then uploading viruses to the hard drive incase they were found by the colonials. Next they removing the hard drives from the computer, then with a blow torch they burned through the drive before dumping them in a pile which multiple claymore charges facing toward them from all angles.

"Will we be ready?" inquired Woolsey to one of the Gurkas.

"Yes, sir." confirmed the solider as the computer on Woolsey's desk began to ring telling him he had a live message coming in. He moved to the computer, with a simple key stroke the screen came alive but instead of the President or a General appearing on the screen there was an older man in a Russian uniform.

"Good day Doctor Woolsey I am Captain Ramius of the Akula and we have something to talk about." stated the Russian Captain with a grin. "We need your help to carry out an operation, tell me have you destroyed your printers yet?"

"No, I don't think so. Where are you?" inquired Woolsey

"Right over your head, we are cloaked and I would beam down to talk to you face to face but we can't get close enough," explained Captain Ramius as if it was nothing. "Now we need to get busy, if we are going to steal a ZPM."

**The sun was still high in the sky on Valhalla and from looks it would appear to have been a perfect day, however this was far from the case.** While every military base near the Capital of Celin was busy with the rescue mission and trying to feed and house the people who survived the attack but Chuck Yeager Field was all but empty. As a Condor Bomber base they had little to add that would help in the rescue mission, so the crews had almost nothing to do but watch the news.

Standing in the doorway to the break room watching the news was Lieutenant Andrea Lang, the Norwegian bomber pilot shook her head as some of the blonde hair which she kept in a short pony tail moved behind her. She moved out into the field where the lines of Condor bombers sat waiting for orders. She moved toward her aircraft tail number Con-167 meant that it was the 167 condor ever built and as far as she cared it was the best bomber ever made. She moved to the bomber only to notice someone standing on a lift by the next bomber in line to her.

"What are you doing?" asked Andrea as she moved over to see one of the ground crew, Jack standing on the lift with multiple cans of paint and brushes all around him.

"Ah it's the Ice Queen." Laughed the man as Andrea fixed him with the ice blue eyes which had even her nickname in flight school. That is when she noticed that Jack was doing, behind him on the Condor was the imagine of a realist Knight in full armor with a sword raised so that it pasted at an angle behind the small pilot's side window.

"Do you have permission to do that?" asked Andrea

"No, I am just using some of the left over paint we have when we paint flags on the aircraft," stated the man. "Besides a nuclear weapon just went off a few hundred miles away and pretty soon we will be heading into a full scale war, nose art isn't going to raise an eyebrow."

"Are you sure the flight leader will allow this?" inquired Andrea as the man shrugged with a laugh.

"Considering I finished painting Deadpool on his nose before I did this, I think not." stated the man as Andrea lowered her head a bit. "Do you want me to paint something on your nose?"

That cause Andrea's head to snap up as she thought about it.

"Actually yes." Said Andrea as she described what she wanted on her aircraft nose. Within the hour Jack began to paint a blonde hair women in a blue dress which was known by people around the world. She had an outstretched hand, which shot a line of ice and snow, below it the words. "Elsa's Revenge." Andrea stood back and watched with a smile as her version came alive. He had just finished when her flight squadron commander ran out and give her the word. They had a mission.

**Hours later President Richard Adar woke up and waited for the dawn, he looked out the window of the Presidential estate across the massive open field toward the 12 towering Granite Statues of the Lords of Kobol. **The 45 feet tall granite statues stood in a circle showed all the lords of Kobol facing out in all directions, the paths between the statues bases allowed people to journey to the middle where Holy Scriptures could be seen engraved on their backs. A nearly 300 feet tall flagpole shot up from the center with a massive colonial flag flying from the pole. Smaller flags from each of the colonies where located in front of their patron God or Goddess statue. There was an open gap in the circle which had been left there for the 13th tribe to place their own statue, but that wasn't likely going to happen any time soon. On the other side of those statues, almost an equal distance away from them as he was now was the Quorum building where he would be giving a speech in a few hours. Then he would be heading to the Temple of Apollo where a mass would be held, that building had a similar view he had now only from the East looking West toward the Old Colonial Military Headquarters instead of the Quorum building.

"Mr. President how did you sleep?" inquired an aid

"I slept rather peaceful." admitted the President with a smile as he moved to get ready for the most important day of his life. "With any luck this will be the best day of my political life."

**By a strange twist of fate, it was also sunrise over Washington DC and the President of the United States had not slept more than three hours. **He knew what he was going to say in a few hours, he looked out the window toward the Washington Monument; the flags, which surrounded the monument to the first president, had been lowered to half-staff. All the flags had been lowered nationwide to half-staff. Throughout the night, the different nations across the world where declaring war against the 12 colonies of Kobol. They had each done it in their own way, the British PM had spoken before Parliament and even King Charles in full royal get up was there along with Prince William and his wife Catherine. By contrasted the Russian President had given his speech before a massive crowd of people and soldiers gathered in Red Square Moscow. They even had a fly over of Eagle fighters with colored smoke in the red, white and blue of the Russian flag. While not declaring war the Pope himself had a public mass in St. Peter's Square, similar things where going on before the Wailing Wall and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.

"The world will not be the same by the time the sun goes down." stated the President as he looked down at the speech in his hands. He had written it multiple times and he had reread multiple speeches from different presidents throughout history, he had even gone out of the United States to look at British PM Speechs most of all Winston Churchill.

**While it was sunrise in the Washington and Caprica city the sun was going down in Celin. The rescue operation was still going on but most people knew that the odds of finding anyone alive anymore was low. **The searchers had not even gone into the center area of the blast, the radiation was still too high and it would be a while before it would low enough for them to enter. The mission was now getting help to those who had made it through the blast, not only the medical help but simply finding a place for people to sleep was hard.

Sitting at the far end of the Ferya lake sat elements of German 21st armored division, they had pulled up into a lakeside park and where now out of their tanks. The six wheeled APCs where still being used to move wounded and cilivians around but the tank force was currently not needed so they had been ordered to take up a position South of the blast zone where the road from Celin moved around the edge of the lake up toward Disney world.

The Tank crews had gotten out and using the wood which came from the multitude of broken branches had started a massive fire.

"You know sir, if it wasn't for the fact that we are dealing with a nuclear strike this is a pretty nice camp out," laughed the driver of his tank as Major Jager looked up from his ration bar and fixed him with a look. "I know a camp out isn't worth it sir."

"Nothing is worth it," countered Major Jager as he looked at the taste ration bar which was the first meal he had today. "A lot of people died today and more will die soon enough."

Movement coming from the shadows caused him to grab his side arm; they had gotten orders to watch out for crashed colonial pilots. Instead of colonials coming out of the darkness it was a large group of civilians carrying items. It took the Major a moment to realize that it was pots and pans, and then the smell of hot food passed his nose. His stomach rumbled as the other man in his unit turned toward the civilians.

"Come we have food." said an older woman with a thick Russian accent. Behind her others where setting up tables and putting some thick brown stew into a bowl. The soldiers did not have to be asked twice as they moved to grab food tines from their packs. Jager stayed back and watched as his men moved through the line getting a big serving of stew, the locals even had fresh bread. Near the end Jager moved in to get his serving.

"Thank you." said Jager

"No, thank you." said an older man.

"You need your strength," said the same woman as she placed a large severing full of soup in his tin. He looked down to see that the stew had large pieces of meat, pieces of potatoes and fresh vegetables in it.

Jager moved back to his tank to start eating when a roar filled the air, the men looked up to see a line of Condor bombers with white objects under their wings flew over their fire. There was a cheer from his men and the civilians as they waved at the passing bombers before they made the turn up into space. Behind them came another flight of Condors, and another until five flights of Condors flew over the tanks.

**The work crews had spent all night preparing the Temple of Apollo for the special event, the marble floors had been waxed clean, the golden statue of Apollo had been cleaned and the holy fires had been light. **With that and all the other small details done the work crews went home leaving the priest and priestess to finish the fine detailed work. Most of the guards surrounded the outside of the building to prevent anyone from getting in. They never saw or heard the three-cloaked jumpers which moved over their heads toward the roof top entrees.

"Hacking into camera network," said one of the Seals as he sat with his lap top open. "Done I have access, beginning recording of cameras."

The Seals waited a few minutes while the computer recorded everything happening inside and outside the temple. With a simple flip of the switch the cameras began to send the recorded video back to the main guard post located on the top floor. Then he Seals jumped out of the back first jumper and moved toward the rooftop entrees. When they cleared the Jumper moved away allowing the next jumper this one full of Gurkas members jump out. The second jumper moved off allowing the third to dropped off their passengers, they had fewer but the eight soldiers carried four large crates. Two of the crate teams moved off toward the interior while the other group moved toward the far wall, which gave them a view of the Quorum building. Unlike the other jumpers, the third remained above the landing waiting.

"Time to repay them for Valhalla." said one of the crate carriers as he opened up the crate he was carrying to show a long tube, a stand. "I'll set up the Mortar, go get the shells."

Beside him the other mortar team was setting up, thanks to the low wall, they were hidden from view and the airspace around the capital was sealed off so their was no raptors to look down and see the two mortars being set up.

Inside the temple three guards sat in front of a line of Tv screens, they where only half paying attention to them. The temple was empty aside from their fellow guards and the priest and priestess. The TV crews hadn't even shown up yet, the only thing to note was the line of people outside waiting to get in for a mass celebrated by Priest Spiro the head of the Holy Order of Zeus.

"So what do you think the President will say in his speech?" inquired one of the guards who was watching the news coverage of the President's speech which would start in five minutes.

"I don't…" started the guard only to have his voice replaced with a wet thud. The first guard didn't even have time to think before he got two rounds to the chest and another one to the head.

"Clear." Said the first Seal as he and his teammate entered the guard post which was now stained with the blood of three guards. They moved out allowing two of the Gurkas move in and destroy the recording equipment, after words they would set some charges to make sure no recordings remained of their actions.

The Americans and Gurkas moved through the temple like a deadly storm, everyone who got in their way met their maker. They used the classic double tap to the chest with a few shots to the head to make sure the person was dead. A few of them where armed with training stun rounds which they used on the unprotected priests and Priestess but the armed guards had to go down with bullets fired from silenced weapons. Finally, they reached their second goal, in a side shire stood four guards dressed in golden armor, shields and swords. They stood facing the ZPM or as the Colonials called it the Light of Apollo. The armed guards never stood a chance as four seals moved around a corner and fired four rounds each, three to the chest to make sure the bronze armor didn't stop the bullets. The last to the head.

The guards fell with a clang causing the priest and priestess who had been setting things up in the main temple turn toward the side shrine. A few even saw the armed invaders but they didn't stand a chance as the other seals and the Gurkas moved on them. Within moments the temple was under Tau'ri control.

"Clear." Said the Seal commander "Lets get to work."

The two-container carrier teams moved up, one moved to the side shrine. They opened up their containers to show a perfect copy of the ZPM they had come to take. They quickly switched it out and headed back up to the waiting Jumper. The ZPM was the most important thing was to get the ZPM away. Inside the other container were rolls of posters, which had been printed off the printers at the mission. While some of the Seals moved to restrain the stunned priests and priestess, others moved to hang the posters on the walls. Thanks to the self-sticking tape attached to the back it was easy and the first image went up showing a German solider holding a bloody little girl. Above it was the words "You did this!"

Other images showed the American and Chinese Paratroopers raising the Tau'ri flag in the remains of Disney World with the nuclear mushroom cloud in the background. The Words "Remember Valhalla" in bold above. Other posters showed the remains of the Colonial fleet above Valhalla and a crashed Viper. There were others, the Tau'ri did not care that they were putting up posters on the walls of one of the most holy places to the Colonial people, it was part of the cover for the taking of the ZPM and they were going to do their best.

**Unaware of what was taking place only one and a half miles away from him the President of the 12 Colonies of Kobol straightened his tie as he waited to enter the Quorum chamber. He knew that the eyes of the Colonies where on him, in fact this was the only thing on TV.**

"Members of the Quorum it is my Great Honor to welcome into the Quorum hall President Richard Adar of the 12 colonies of Kobol." Said the announcer as President Adar walked into the main chamber of the Quorum. A small podium had been set up with its back to the spots reserved for the Quorum members of Earth. Flanking him on either sides where the seats saved for the holy orders and members of the Colonial Military. Adar looked out into the eyes of quorum members most of whom hated him and questioned him at every turn.

"Good day ladies and Gentlemen of the Quorum, this has been a rough time in the Colonials. We have had to deal with multiple issues which has come with contact with our brothers and sisters from Earth." started Adar "We had come to learn that our cousins do not believe in the Lords of Kobol, that they claim to be the main tribe and that we are the descendants of slaves taken by an alien from Earth. It is well within their rights to believe that however it is well within our rights to believe that the Lords of Kobol made us in their image and that the tribes of men left our home of Kobol thousands of years ago."

There was a handful of clapping at that but most of the room remained silent and cold as the President paused for a moment.

"Now we have had a multiple of struggles with our cousins about their place within the government of Kobol. They have defied the will of our dually appointed judges and have ignored the laws, which where passed within these very halls. They have even entered a treaty with the mortal enemy of all humanity, the Cylons without the permission of all the tribes of men." Stated Adar "Many of you have attacked me and my government for lack of actions when it came to the Tau'ri, well I can explain why we have not made any moves visible to the public."

This caused multiple heads to tilt a little bit in confusion.

"Our military with the help of top researchers discovered weeks ago the location of the nearest Tau'ri colony, a world they call Valhalla." explained Adar "It sits about 2,000 light years away from our board and from all reports it appears to be a freshly colonized world. The Tau'ri have always believed that they were above their brothers and sisters so to show them that they are not above us I ordered a task group to go to this Valhalla. Due to the distance, we have not received word from them yet but they should have arrived yesterday. They have peacefully demonstrate that we cannot be brushed aside and that they have to treat us like the tribes we are."

Adar smiled as multiple people stood up and clapped, he waited a moment basking in the moment.

"Now this event opens up a whole new line of opportunities for the Colonies and the Tau'ri and it is my hope that we can reach common ground. To do this we must be realist, the Tau'ri have simply drifted too far from when they left Kobol to return to the fold right away. We must be the loving father willing to wait for the child to realize their mistake instead of the harsh father, which only leads to conflict. In time we will win them back to the faith but if we force them it will only lead to pain." said Adar as he took a middle of the road path. "Now I purpose that we start over with our cousins and we come to an agreement to solve our current problems. I purpose to the Quorum a trade with our Brothers and sisters from Earth, see in their great rush to expend across space our best expects believe that the Tau'ri have discovered by accident the true home of all humanity, Kobol."

He let that hang in the air as the Quorum fell dead silent.

"We cannot be sure but the images we do have of their world, Valhalla matches ancient descriptions of Kobol and their seems to be the remains of an ancient city which could be the city of the Gods." explained Adar. "Since the Tau'ri themselves have said multiple times that they have multiple empty worlds that they can settle on, I would like the permission of the Quorum to open talks with the Tau'ri for a trade. We will release them of all legal bindings to the 12 Colonies of Kobol until such time that they wish to join us. We will not charge them for any of the criminal actions they have already done and will grant them the right to make treaties with the Cylons, if they give us our true home Kobol, what they call Valhalla."

Adar held his breath and waited; his plan would either die on arrival or fly. Seconds seamed to last forever, than slowly clapping began to fill the chamber. That was when it broke and the entire Quorum stood up and cheered. Believing that their president had just lead them to a middle of the road path, which would solve most of the problems. They would not reunite with their Tau'ri brothers and sisters like the religious wanted but they may have found Kobol that was more important. Adar smiled as he looked at his watch, he frowned slightly he had wanted to take a few questions but the President of the United States Speech was going to be broadcasted in minutes.

"I know traditionally I would answer questions but our Tau'ri cousins are going to broadcast a speech from Earth by their leader. I will step aside and let him go before I answer questions from the Quorum." said Adar as he stepped aside.

**There was about a minute when nothing happened and then the projector came alive and an image of a Tau'ri flag appeared. **All over the Colonies, the TV stations switched to the main broadcast from the Tau'ri mission. They did not have to wait long as the image of a room full of people appeared. Unlike the Quorum chamber which was a full circle this one was only half of one. There was a podium a raised podium in the center with two people sitting behind them. One of them raised a gavel hitting it against the wooden top.

"Mr. Speaker the President of the United States." Came a voice as the camera moved to show a well dressed man in a blue tie standing behind an older man with a red tie.

The Colonials watched as a man dressed in a dark blue almost black suit and a blue tie walked up toward the podium. The room was a half circle instead of the full circle of the quorum but it was clearly a governmental body of some kind. The red, white and blue flag, which belonged to the Tau'ri nation of the United States of America told them whose house this was. The man stood before a podium, which was set in front of two other figures one was a man in a matching suit with a red tie while the other was a woman dressed in blue. One of them the man stood up and slammed a gavel down on a wooden block.

"Members of the House and Senate of the United States of American it is my pleasure to welcome into our chamber the President of the United States of America and sitting President of the Tau'ri alliance of Nations." said the man as the President of the United States stood behind him.

"They are going to announce the deal I offered and with any luck they will begin talks at once," prayed President Adar outload as this man who was his counterpart from another world prepared to speak.

"Ladies and Gentleman of the House and Senate of the United States of America, I speak not only for this land that have given me and so many others so much but I speak for a world which had given us all so much." started the President of the United States. "We come together after a dark and terrible event which forever be remember in our history. Yesterday November 7th 2020 the colony world of Valhalla was the victim a nuclear strike by the military forces of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol."

"What?" asked Adar stunned as the other high-ranking members of the entire Quorum stood watching with him.

"We still do not know how many people died in the blast which claimed the lives of people from every Tau'ri nation or how this fleet was able to get as close to the colony without being discovered but that fleet has been totally destroyed." said the President of the United States. "We know that the Leaders of the 12 tribes of Kobol believe that they have power over us, that they have the right to enforce their wills upon the member nations of the Tau'ri. We have been working to find a peace while behind our backs the Colonials sent a fleet to attack our people on Valhalla."

"Due to the distance between their space and Valhalla they must have launched their fleet while we were still trying to find a solution to our problems. They have proven themselves in the eyes of humanity to be dishonest and underhanded. They have slaughtered untold numbers innocent people in a nuclear fireball and we will repay them for that, we will remember Valhalla," said the President. "The people of the Colonies of Kobol have awake the people of the Tau'ri and filled us with a terrible resolve. We will come together to fight for our freedoms and our liberties and with the strength of all mighty God we will see this through to ultimate victory."

By now Adar was totally stunned as the entire chamber on the screen stood up in a roar of applausive.

"Therefore I ask this Congress to join with the rest of our Allies Nations of the Tau'ri that since this horrific attack on the peaceful colony of Valhalla that a state to War has existed between the United States and the Twelve Colonies of Kobol." said the President of the United States as the entire congress broke out in applausive.

**You all thought I was evil before whenever I would end in a cliffhanger, well I believe this may be my best cliffhanger yet. Now I hope you enjoyed this very long chapter, I almost split it up into two but decided you had to wait long enough for war. Now until next time please keep reading, thanks Wilkins75.**


	33. Chapter 33

**Chapter 33 This Means War**

President Richard Adar just stared at the screen not wanting to believe what he was watching, he had just pulled off what he believed to be the perfect solution to the problem with their cousins and then only minutes afterwards the Cousins had declared war against the worlds he led. He did not want to believe it he could not it was the worse outcome he could possible think of. Then he realized what the President had said, that the colonial navy had carried out a nuclear strike on Valhalla and he had just told the people of the colonies that Valhalla could possibly be their home world of Kobol. He turned to face the Quorum, like him they were stunned.

He was about to say something when a boom filled the air and the ground moved under his feet. Adar's head spun as he looked toward the source of the blast, which came from some point in front of him. Moments later a second blast came from behind him.

"We are under attack?" asked Adar stunned.

**Outside two smoking holes had just formed on the grassy fields directly in front and directly behind the Quorum building.**

"A little long cut distance in half," ordered the Pilot back to the mortar team. Seconds later the round fell right in the dome causing it to explode in a fireball. "Hit, fire full effect."

The mortar teams did not have to be told again as they began to drop the shells into the tubes. Each round was sent down range in a deadly arch while some of the shells where classic high explosive rounds while others where incendiary rounds. The thing about mortars is that a well-trained team can fire up to twenty shells in a minute, with two teams the Tau'ri was now raining death upon the heart of the Colonial government about every one and a half seconds.

**Inside the Quorum building it was pure panic, the security detail had rushed forward to grab the president and get him to somewhere safe. **Other security teams moved forward to grab key members of the government and military. The historic dome above them busted open as giant stones began falling on the Quorum members. Adar's eyes widened as he saw a women get crushed by a fallen stone block. There was yet another boom followed by screams of pain, Adar spun his head around to see that a shell or something had hit directly in the center of the gathering of military officers. More shells began to fall all around the leaders of the colonies who were running around trying to find a way out.

"Come with me sir!" yelled an officer as he grabbed Adar's hand and ran toward the nearest exit, behind them a moved the rest of the severing presidential security staff. He ran and ran as the cry of fire and the smell of smoke and burning flesh filled the air. Finally, he busted into the open, the security team rushed the president to a military Raptor which had carried some the highest ranking officers down from Orbit. They rushed onboard only to find a scared out his mind pilot.

"Fraken Gods, it's the President!" yelled the pilot

"Get us airborne now!" yelled the security member as he and others rushed onboard, they all had their weapons drawn but their first duty was to get the President to safety. The Pilot took a moment but he took off. "Mr. President strap in."

Adar did not argue with him as he strapped himself into the seat located directly behind the pilot. The turned his head and looked out of the cockpit window and saw the Quorum building on fire. The thick black pillar of smoke was rising up over the capital.

"What are they hitting us with?" asked Adar

"I don't know sir, but it seems to have stopped," stated the pilot as he titled the aircraft forward to take the President back to the Presidential estate.

"No, head out of the city!" yelled the security leader as the Raptor turned and headed out of the city as fast as possible.

**The Tau'ri mortar teams had ran out of shells and they had started to take light-armed fire from snipers, which had been more focus on protecting the Quorum building from terrorist armed with rifles not soldiers armed with mortars. **The smoke that came from firing the Mortars had given them away but the low wall had protected the teams from the bullets, which were being aimed at them.

"Time to get out of here!" yelled one of the Tau'ri as both teams broke down their weapons in record time and ran back to where they knew the Jumper was. A red piece of fabric on the ground told them where the ramp was. They ran inside and disappeared into the cloak jumper, the jumper took off with the back ramp closing. Seconds after it took off the first colonial vipers did a strafing run where the mortars had been only moments ago.

The cloaked jumpers head away from the city unseen and unnoticed by anyone, not knowing that where gone the Caprica Police force headed toward the Temple of Apollo. They stormed in guns at the ready, expecting to have fire coming at them. Instead they found the place empty of Tau'ri forces. As they moved in they discovered that some of the most important paintings in the temple had posters over them.

"Those sons of a bitches they put that thing over the mosaic of Apollo and his Chariot." Snapped a police officer.

"Frank don't you see what is on the poster?" asked his partner as the officer looked at the poster for the first time. There where scenes of destruction and pain, every photo was symbolic and full of emotion.

"We need to keep the press out of here," ordered Frank but it was too late there was already some news reporters there. They had run away from the shells landing on the Quorum and had stumbled into the temple. "Frak!"

**Outside the city at the Tau'ri mission the colonial army which surrounded the building could see the smoke rising from the center of Caprica City. **They had no idea what had happened but like so many others they had watched the news broadcasts which came first from the Quorum and then from Earth. They knew that Tau'ri had just declared war against their colonies, without ordered from their commanders the armored personal carriers and the tanks which had surrounded the building began to move forward. They had expected to crash into the stonewalls and then let the infantry which was behind them sweep into the grounds. As they neared, the wall music began to play from powerful speakers that the Tau'ri had set up for the speeches. It was a heavy beat song, which was picking up but no one was speaking yet.

"Hide my face." started the singer

"What the frak are those Tau'ri doing?" asked a Colonial Solider to the man in front of him as the music kept playing.

"Who the frak cares?" snapped the solider in front of him as the wall came crashing down. "We are in."

Just then as the song which was blasting reached started with actual singing.

"Die, Watch the Scythe usher me away." sang whoever was the man who was the voice behind the song. The other Colonial soldiers where paying the song no mind as they headed into the grounds. The strange thing was that they were not getting any fire as they moved across the grounds.

"Take aim, with a loaded gun." said the singer that is when the house came alive as multiple windows opened up and a hail of bullets so fast that it seemed next to impossible began raining down on the Colonial soldiers. It did not even sound like actual gunfire but like a constant buzzing sound. The soldiers, which had made up the first wave was cut down as if they had hit a wall of bullets. The some of them where nothing more then mince meat by the time they hit the ground. The fire kept going as more bullets rain down impossibly fast from the windows. The bullets were joined by what felt like grenades going off but they were going off as fast as a machine gun.

"This means War!" said the singer over the sound of the incoming rounds.

Hoovering over the invaders was one of the jumpers, which had been hidden on Caprica since the arrival of the Tau'ri.

"Well looks like those Colonials are having fun with the metal storm thing." laughed the pilot as he floated unseen above the battlefield.

"They should it fires 16 thousand rounds a second," stated Major Labh as the music kept playing. "What song is this?"

The pilot looked down at the computer which was controlling the weapon system and the music player.

"This means War by Avenged Sevenfold." answered the pilot "I personally would have gone with something else maybe a bit more modern but it works, it works."

"Well the song is our timer so we should pull back we don't want to get caught in the explosion." ordered Major Labh as the Jumper pulled back leaving the automatic firing metal storm do its work. One of the colonial tanks fired into the building only to get hit by one of the automatic weapons firing grenade size rounds.

"Alright looks like the civilians are clear," said the pilot of the jumper as he pulled away from the burning remains of what had once been the headquarters of the Tau'ri on Caprica. He did not want to be anywhere nearby when the music went off and the power cores overloaded. If the power cores failed to go up then he would have to use one of his ancient drones to set it off, that way the Colonials could not get ahold of it.

Down below the colonial forces where pinned down by the fire from the building, tanks and armored vehicles which were behind the front lines had begun to open up on the building with heavy cannon. The top floor was now burning but the fire kept coming in, suddenly the fire stopped and for a second nothing seemed to happen then the house exploded outwards sending shards of wood flying everywhere. The hanger suffered a similar fate only with flying sheet metal instead of wood. After the blast, the only sound that could be heard was the crackling of the fire. The Colonial soldiers stood up from where they had taken cover, for a moment they looked at the burning wrecks of the buildings and the condor spacecraft. Then the screams of the wounded filled the air joining the roar of the fire.

"We got wounded!" yelled a voice.

Suddenly two blinding flashes of light came from within the fires, one from the main house and the other from the condor. For a moment, nothing happened then a wave of energy shot out from the two sources followed seconds later by a mini wall of fire.

"My Gods!" yelled a colonial News Raptor, which had been flying toward the battle, from the pilots view they could see two almost perfectly round explosions, which rose up from two nearby locations. One was clearly larger judging from its height and width but either way he would not have wanted to be on the ground when they went up.

**The space in the outer ring of the system ripped open as three flights of six aircraft each of Tau'ri Condor bombers appeared inside the Colonial home system. **At once, the swept wings of the condors moved out to allow the missiles hanging under their wings to be fired.

"Opening bombing bay doors." said the copilot of Else's Revenge as she flipped a switch on the center column. Both her and the pilot Lieutenant Andrea Lang where dressed in their flight suits with helmets covering their entire face. The semi-clear visor gave both of them a heads up display which showed their location in space and likely threats to their aircraft. Down and behind the two of them the four long bays opened up and the missiles where lowered. Due to them being in space they simply couldn't drop them like they would on a world. Instead the missiles sat in a revolve style devise which would allow them to be rotated into firing position.

"We are all green," reported Andrea as all 36 of her missiles where ready to fire. With her bomber including their was 18 bombers on this attack run. Each had 36 missiles for a grand total of 648 long range missiles.

"We have a flight of Vipers coming from Tauron heading our way and multiple warships are trying to contact us, getting us to stand down." Reported her copilot "Like that is going to happen."

"Not a chance." laughed Andrea as she flipped to one of the Colonial radio channels.

"Attention Tau'ri space craft stand down you have invaded our space." Stated a voice

"Are we early?" asked Andrea to her copilot who shrugged as another voice came over the colonial line.

"Attention all forces, the Tau'ri have declared war against us do not allow them near…" started a male voice only to have the line go dead, at the same moment a blinding flash of light appeared over Caprica.

"My Gods command is down!" yelled a colonial pilot

"I wonder how we did that?" asked Andrea "We are supposed to be the first flight."

"Who cares we should be nuking their cities not just their ships." countered her copilot as another flash filled space, this one near where the first went off. "There goes another one."

"They took out the Pandora." yelled another pilot

"This is Commander Artiston I will assume command of the fleet onboard the…." started a voice only to have his line go dead at the same moment a third flash filled space.

"Where is the fire coming from!" yelled a pilot

"Does anyone see the enemy who is firing on us?" yelled another as a fourth nuclear explosion rocked the colonial fleet around Caprica.

"Well civilian traffic is making a run for it." said Andrea as she watched her radar display, the recon owls which had come in before them had mapped out the area and was giving them up to the second information on colonial military and civilian traffic. Their current orders where to leave the civilian ships alone.

"Well the path is clear for us to making our run," said her copilot

"Then let's do it," said Andrea as Elsa's Revenge and the rest of the condors made the turn and headed straight toward Caprica on their attack run. Another flash of light caused her helmet to darken a bit but with each flash of light a colonial warship that could have gotten in her way was no more. The colonial vipers and raptors outnumbered the bombers nearly 6 to 1 where being cleared out by the blasts and those who did not die from the blast where either in disarray from their ships/commanders going up or blinded themselves from the flashes.

"ETA to firing position 45 seconds." said her copilot as she turned into the weapons officer of the flight. "Missiles onboard tracking system is locked and all missiles are in the green."

"For Valhalla." said Andrea as her aircraft reached its firing position. She pulled the trigger on her joy stick and almost at once she felt her bomber rock as the missiles began to ripple fire off her wings and from the bomb bays. They appeared in front of her almost all at once white pillars of death shooting forward toward a blue, green ball which looked at a distance similar to Earth and Valhalla but was the home of her enemy.

"All missiles are away," said her copilot as the weapon board showed that they were now empty.

"All flight missiles are away return to base." said her flight leader as the condors turned away from Caprica, their wings moving back into a swept state as they prepared to travel through hyperspace for the three-hour journey back to Valhalla. They took no fire from the stunned and confused colonials as they reached their flight corridor back and almost as one, they opened up their hyperspace windows and left Caprica behind. By the time, they returned to base they would have spent just over six hours and ten minutes in flight, and six hours of that was just flying to and from base in hyperspace.

Their missiles followed their programed path through the massive hole opened up in colonial defense line by the exploding battlestars. The missiles onboard computers did a quick hack into the Colonial version of a GPS system and changed their flights as they prepared to make planet fall. Not all the missiles would get through the hole, some blew up when they hit remains of the distoryed battlestars but this had been taken into account by the planners back on Valhalla and multiple missiles where targeted on key locations.

The missiles dove into the atmosphere their bodies turning red hot from the heat as they passed from space into atmosphere. The bulk of the missiles where aimed for Caprica city and the surrounding area. The missiles exploded in groups as they slammed into targets ranging from the Presidential estate to the Department of Education building. Every government building above local library took fire in one form or another. Some only took a single missile strike while others such as the Presidential estate took multiple hits. The only building not to take any fire was the temple of Apollo. Other missiles hit the military bases around the city as well as civilian structures such as bridges and highway overpasses. By the time the Tau'ri missiles had stopped falling every bridge was rubble and many of the historic and governmental buildings where mounts of rubbles.

There were other items falling on Caprica and not all of them were made by Tau'ri, falling to the ground like a steal rain were pieces of the battlestars which had been nuked in orbit by the Tau'ri. Some of these pieces where small only nukes and bolts which had made it through the heat of reentry while others where slabs of metal the size of trucks. Among the wretch fell items that wasn't accounted for in the Tau'ri military planners, falling where small pieces of nuclear warheads which had been stored onboard the Pandora Battlestar in obit above the colonies. The pieces had been warped making them unable to be used as built without a lot of effort but they were still radiative. That was considered a small risk in the Tau'ri military planners but what wasn't taken into account was the stockpile of chemical weapons.

These weapons had been overlooked by the Tau'ri planners because of a simple computer filing difference to the Tau'ri, chemical and biological weapons where on the same level as nuclear weapons and treated as close to the same as possible in their deadly effects. The Colonials who did not have the history of the Tau'ri when it came to effects of Chemical weapons in WW1 did not see them as the same threat as nuclear. The falling canisters where unknown to the Tau'ri and most of all to the people down below, while a large percentage of them where destroyed not all of them where. Some fell down into the highly populated areas of Caprica City. With all the explosions, coming from the Tau'ri missile attack no one noticed them hitting the ground; they broke open and released their deadly attack.

Some of the agents released would have been known to Tau'ri agents such as Mustard Gas and VX nerve agents others where unique to the Colonials. One of the gent released was the Silver Mist Gas which was designed to destroy Cylon centurions with a strong acid mist in the last Cylon war. While not effective and never used in mass it was still highly deadly to human life. The gas was an unseen enemy and within moments, people began dying in the streets from the effects. The images of people falling over dead in the street from the gas were being broadcasted across the colonies from the countless news raptors which flew overhead recording everything.

In all the Tau'ri attack on Caprica lasted less than five minutes but left countless dead and the once great city engulfed in flames.

**The news of the attack and the declaration of war went across the colonial wireless networks as fast as they could. **Even so it took time to arrive at the most distance locations within colonial space, one of those location was the mining colony of Nysa. Nysa was home for a few thousand people who lived and worked on the dwarf planet mining different elements from it most importantly Tylium which was used as a source of fuel for every ship the colonial had. On top of the mines, Nysa was home to a minor colonial navy base. The base's main job was to act like a coast guard station to tend to shipping mishaps that came up in its area. Unluckily for the people living in Nysa it was also the closets fixed military base to the Tau'ri boarder and that meant it would be the first to feel the wraith of the Tau'ri outside of Caprica.

"We have multiple contacts!" yelled an colonial officer on Nysa as he looked down at the Dradis display.

"Someone must have forgotten to register a stop over." laughed his commanding officer, like everyone else in the room. The people stationed here was the bottom rung of the colonial military, some of them had black marks in their records which wouldn't allow them to go higher up in the chain of command. He moved toward his wireless broadcaster to talk to the ships coming in. "Attention this is Nysa Command, we don't have your flight on our schedule identify so that we clear landing area for your ships."

He lifted a cup of coffee to his lips and waited for a response, the response came when alarms started going off.

"We have multiple missile launches!" yelled another officer as the missiles flew toward their targets. The old outdated dradis system had trouble dealing with the hundreds of missiles launched by the two flight of Condor bombers. The defenses around the base came alive, the four Hoplite class warships opened up with their small arms.

The Hoplite class warship was only a hundred and twenty feet long and carried two recue Raptors and three vipers which could be launched from a small bay located between the engines. The ships normal crew of 40 men ran to their station but none of them had expected a fight and only got a few shots off before the Tau'ri missiles flew into their ships. Other missiles hit the base itself; since most of the base was underground, it took the attack better than the ships. The civilian ships being loaded up with minerals from the mines where not spared as they were hit by the Tau'ri missiles.

"What the frak was that?" yelled the officer as he looked at his broken coffee cup.

"Where were just attacked sir!" yelled a lower ranking officer

"I know that!" yelled the officer as the military wireless receiver came alive, within seconds a piece of paper was printed out and grabbed by the lower ranking officer.

"Sir, you will not believe this but we just got an emergency message from central command, the Tau'ri have declared war on us." Reported the officer

"And they couldn't have told us that before our base was wrecked!" snapped the higher officer.

**Across the void between Galaxies General Shepard walked through the door of the apartment complex that was his home. **It was a rather large apartment with room for his entire family and it was a short ride to the command center in the neighboring tower. The apartment had once belonged to a senior Ancient General and so it had direct links to the command center. Right now Jon did not care; he grabbed himself a beer from the refrigerator in the kitchen and after checking in to make sure the kids where asleep he moved out onto the balcony where he could see the lights of the city. The night was cool but not cold as he sat down at the table and looked at the city. He never heard the door open behind him, only when a hand brushed over his shoulders did he realize that his wife was up.

"Sorry if I woke you." apologized John as Teyla shook her head and sat down, across from him. She was dressed in a pair of sweat pants with a simple purple tank top.

"I couldn't sleep," admitted Teyla "I had to explain to Elizabeth what happened on Valhalla, it wasn't pretty. Torren took it better, but he is older and he remembers when both of us would leave on combat missions."

"I should have been there to help, but I just got back half an hour ago and I spent that half hour sending a report to Earth." explained John "They are going to take the fleet away, not sure how much of it but they will take it. I sent a message trying to explain why we need the fleet here; we are so close to finishing the Wraith off once and for all. We can clean this galaxy of them and then once we are done turn on these colonials."

"They won't go for it," stated Teyla she had helped design the plans to take down the remaining Wraith ships. "We will just have to do the best we can, I can see one good thing from this."

"What is that?" asked John "Because I am not looking forward to explaining to our allies here why we can't honor or word in attacking the Wraith."

"That once this war with the Colonials are done Earth will have a lot more ships that they can send to help us here," noted Teyla

"True, but this isn't going to be a quick war," countered Jon as he took a drink "The Tau'ri high command on Earth is predicting it will take at least 18 months before we begin real offensive actions against the Colonials and another two years after that before we can end the war outright. That is almost four years that the people of this galaxy will be put on the back burner, four years of Wraith attacks and four years of endless deaths by the Wraith. That isn't even looking at the possibility that the Wraith could unite under a new Queen and become a major threat again."

"We have lasted thousands of years with the Wraith we can stand four years if we have to." Explained Teyla as she stood up and took Jon's hand. "Come on, let's get some sleep."

John did not have to be told again as he stood up and within a couple of minutes he found his head resting on his own pillow with the woman he loves resting beside him. He had just closed his eyes when the video phone on the nightstand began to ring.

"Shit." cursed Jon as he rolled over and hit the phone; he was instantly greeted by the face of a young officer in the control room.

"This better be good Jimmy," snapped John, he did not mess with rank; he was too tired and cranky for that.

"Sorry General but message just came in from Earth, it involves the return of the fleet and the transfer of the Colonial prisoners." reported Jimmy

"And this couldn't wait till morning?" asked John it would not take long to get the Colonials who were currently under confinement in their rooms in Atlantis. They did not need him to look over which ships would be heading back, which was the job for a Colonel.

"Sir, we have orders to offer our house guest a chance to fight for us." reported Jimmy as John's eyes widened at the idea, for the first time he actually felt sorry for the Colonials and he questioned if this move was wise.

"Alright wake up Ronon and get a tactical team ready to move out." ordered Shepard as he thought about it for a moment. "Also if possible get the Cylon who is pretending to be a colonial Jenny Oldstone to the Jumper bay as well, let's see what she has to say to him."

"It shall be done." confirmed Jimmy as he disappeared from the screen.

"Can't believe they are considering using him." said Teyla as she lied on her side of the bed.

"Me neither but I have to make the offer and besides if they kill him would it be that bad?" asked John as he kissed his wife goodbye as he slipped back into his day uniform and headed out the door.

**Less than twenty minutes later the Cylon humanoid model Six was lead to a waiting jumper where no less than six-armed man waited, they were all dressed in full combat gear including the power armor and full face visors.** She still could not believe that the Tau'ri where now at war with the colonials but if what she heard from the brief time she had with Baltar and the two colonial officers, she felt sorry for the Colonials.

"We have to take a little trip." Explained General Shepard as they got into the Jumper which instantly took off and headed out to sea. Almost at once they were enveloped in darkness as they left the lights of the city behind. Six took an open chair behind the pilot which to her amazement was actually the general himself, the copilot was the big muscular man Ronan who like the others were dressed for combat only he lacked the full faced helmet. She jumped as she heard one of the men load a shotgun shell into a pump shotgun.

"I don't like this idea," admitted Ronan

"Either do I but look at it this way, if he goes for it he will be out of our hair." explained General Shepard as the jumper headed even more out to sea.

"Where are we going?" asked the Six

"Don't worry, nothing bad should happen." said the General as the word should stuck out in the humanoid cylon's head. It didn't take long until a fait light source appeared on the horizon, unlike a normal light which was a yellow white this one was a dark shade of blue like a horror house. The jumper rose up a bite as land suddenly appeared under the jumper. The jumper hoovered for a moment before coming in for a landing beside what looked to be a stone castle of some kind.

"Let's go say hello to the lord of the house." stated General Shepard as they all left the jumper. Two men stayed behind in the sealed jumper shotguns ready. Six followed behind General Shepard and Ronon up the flight of stone steps toward the large stone building. They pushed open the oaken door and entered a large stone hall.

"What is this place?" asked the six as she looked at the stone greeting hall.

"This is my home but that isn't what you were asking." said a deep voice as the six looked up the grand staircase to see a figure dressed in black with long white hair with green tone skin. A tattoo surrounded one of his eyes, two holes where on his cheeks and rings where visible on his strange fingers. "Well this was the castle of a small lord who used to rule the town on this island, my people made short work of him last time we feed on this world. But that was hundreds of years ago before Atlantis made this world their home."

"Hello Todd." said General Shepard in a tone of voice that someone would use to address an old friend/rival.

"Shepard, I was about to have dinner care to join me?" asked Todd

"Sorry I don't really eat the same thing as you." countered Shepard as Todd nodded his head.

"True, but it is a really bad man I am eating tonight, murder and child molester if I remember correctly." said Todd as he moved forward and stood in front of the General. "I do have wine."

"Alright I'll take some wine." said the General as Todd nodded his head and lead the group into a large feast hall where a bare chested man was hung up on the wall.

"Red or white?" asked Todd "I find adding some blood to red really brings out the flavors."

"White." confirmed the General as Todd poured the glasses.

"So why are you here, Shepard my next shipment of prisoners isn't for another two weeks." stated Todd as he handed the drink to

"Todd I have been ordered to present you with a new deal." stated General Shepard

"And why should I take any deal you offer, the deal we have in place works good for me. I taught you how to bring down Wraith ships by giving them cancer and in return I get to all the condemned prisoners I can eat and this place to myself," inquired Todd "I will be the last living Wraith and the Galaxy has no problem feeding a single Wraith. There are enough criminals in the galaxy that I can feast on them with no real problem to the people."

"How would like to fight in a war and then once the war is over the deal we have with you remain in place?" inquired Shepard as Todd grinned.

"You have my interest Shepard." said Todd "What war is this? It isn't your war with the Wraith and you wouldn't unleash me upon any population in this galaxy, you would loss any support with the locals, so it has to be in your own home galaxy."

"A group called 12 colonials of Kobol carried out a nuclear strike on our world and we are going to war." Said Shepard "They have never seen a living Wraith and the higher ups believe you would inspire fear in them."

"I am hurt," laughed Todd as Six realize what sort of panic one of these things would do in the colonies. The more religious people would believe it to be a demon, the less religious would not be sure what it was. If this Wraith was dangerous, enough for the Tau'ri to send so many men just to talk to it while he was unarmed what could he do armed. "So your leaders want me to be a commando of some kind?"

"Yes, a commando of terror." explained Shepard "You will have free reign to do whatever you feel needed, we would prefer it if you go after soldiers not children or the like."

"Children never taste that good in my view but I knew some who liked children." stated Todd as he looked toward the man hanging on the wall. "I would be able to do as I please as long as there is a war on between you and these colonies?"

"Correct and there are twelve worlds for you to pick which one you want to hit." explained Shepard before turning toward the six "I even brought someone who knows the colonials better than most. See she is a Cylon which is kind of like a biological replicator."

"Really," said the Wraith as his golden eyes turned on her. "I wonder how they taste, but that is a question for another day. Would you like some wine?"

"Sure." said the Six as Todd turned toward the bottles of wine. "Red."

"Blood or no blood?" asked Todd with a laugh before pouring the drink and handed it to the Cylon. "So tell me about these 12 colonies of Kobol?"

"What do you want to know?" asked Six

"Everything." explained Todd as he sat down in an old leather chair.

**Thousands of light years away, the President of the United States stood on the Truman Balcony looking out toward the Washington monument.** From this position he could see the armed Humvees which had surrounded the White House, it wasn't that they believed the crowds gathered was a real threat but there was a lot of people and preplanned actions had to take place. A glow caught his eye as he turned toward the source to see something burning.

"Another image of President Adar?" asked the President, the crowds had been gathered outside since news of the attack and they called for one thing and one thing only, revenge. If anyone was calling for forgiveness and peace they were no were to be found.

"Likely sir." admitted an aid "The people are angry and I can't blame them."

"I am with them." countered the President as he placed his hands behind his back. He was thankful that the election was behind him, he would not have to deal with a war right before an election. Luckily he had carried 57% of the popular vote and more than enough states to remain in the White House.

"Mr. President we finally have the first official estimate of the KIA on Valhalla." Said another aid

"How bad?" asked the President, the aid handed over a computer pad, which showed the actual numbers.

"Not as bad as we originally believed, there was a youth soccer tournament going on so a lot of the families where there." explained the aid.

"I don't consider over half a million people dead and another a hundred thousand people still MIA, not bad." snapped the President

"I am not saying it is good sir," said the aid "But early estimates was over a three quarter of million people dead."

"Sir, the congress just finished its voting," reported another aid as she looked down at her smart phone.

"And what was the final vote?" inquired the President

"The House voted 433 for war, two abstained." reported the aid

"I am surprised we had anyone abstained." Countered the other aid

"Well the senior member from New York is in the hospital and there is an open seat from Texas due to death." explained the female aid.

"The Senate voted 104 for war." Said the aid as the President nodded his head, a few years ago Puerto Rico became the 51st state followed only last year by Washington DC became a the first city state, New York City was considering doing the same.

"Them the World is at War," stated the President as he wondered what the future would hold for the United States of America and the Tau'ri in general.

**Well I hope you liked this chapter and the opening shots of the Tau'ri Colonial War. Yes, I am bring Todd into the story, what can I say I liked him in the show and I can't wait to show you what I have written about him in later chapters. Until next time, please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75**


	34. Chapter 34

**Note**

**First I would like to thank everyone who has read and reviewed this story in the first year, I must admit when I first started this story I was not expecting much when it comes to a response I was wrong. I have been amazed at the debates which have happened in the reviews and I hope it keeps going on. Now I hope you enjoy this chapter.**

**Chapter 34 Political Fallout Part 1**

Far outside of the Caprica city sat the emergency command center for the Government of the 12 colonies of Kobol. After the attack on the capital President Adar had been whisked to the location which sat completely underground with the only buildings above it being a slightly larger than normal looking farm. In truth the barn held room form three Raptors hidden long side the farm equipment. From this location he could get up to the minute reports about events across all the colonies. The reports coming in where not good, the attack on the Capital and the declaration of war by the Tau'ri was causing nothing but trouble across the worlds. People being people they went into panic mode, there was a rush going on the banks across the colonies, people where swarming into markets trying to buy food and other supplies. There were riots reported on the streets of every major city and the military was now forced into the due roles of restoring order and protecting the colonies from attack. Already there were reports of attacks by Tau'ri space craft taking place all over colonial space. Some of the reports had to be stories of jumpy pilots reporting ever error that appeared on their screens as Tau'ri space craft. That being said some of the reports where true.

"How could it come to this?" asked Adar as he stood in front of a large photographic showing his office back at the Presidential estate. Every President had the photo updated, the idea being that if the capital had been destroyed he could broadcast messages to the people from a place that looked familiar. He never thought he would have to be here during a time of war but here he was. "How could it come to this?"

"Sir, we don't know for sure and the only reports we have come from the Tau'ri themselves and that can't be fully trusted." said an aid

"And what if it is true, could we have hit Kobol with a nuclear weapon?" inquired Adar

"Sir, the fleet was armed with nuclear weapons and they were ordered to prepare them for use in self-defense." explained a Commander who was now acting as a military aid to the President.

"Why the frak where they ordered to do that?" asked Adar surprised something like that was not shown to him.

"Because of the Tau'ri shields sir, if fired it upon then nuclear weapons would be the only real option against their shields." explained the Commander as Adar felt like ripping the officer's head off but couldn't. Like it or not the military had a point about the Tau'ri shields to send them out without nukes would have been sending them out basically unarmed.

"How much of the government is left alive?" asked Adar

"We are still pulling the wounded and dead from the Quorum building but we do have some confirmed deaths." explained another aid "Most notable is the Vice President and we have reports that while alive the Secretary of State, Justice and Defense are all in critical condition at the hospital. It is touch and go if they will make it through the night, so in the mean time we have to consider them out of action. Multiple Generals and Admirals are down and same with Quorum members."

"Alright who is still alive in the Cabinet aside from myself?" inquired Adar

"The only one who we is still alive and unharmed is Secretary of Education Laura Roslin." explained the Aid as the President raised an eyebrow, the old teacher was a member of the cabinet and in line to become President but so far down it was hardly of note. It did not make sense that they would know she was safe while other more important people where still MIA. The aid must of sensed the president's question and answered it. "It was her turn to be in an undisclosed location during the speech and as such we know she is totally safe."

"Your telling me that right now, if something would happen to me a former teacher would be President of the 12 colonies of Kobol?" asked Adar

"At the moment, yes." admitted the aid "Luckily we expect more people to report in within the next couple of hours. Then we can look into reforming the government, we are just lucky that the Tau'ri didn't drop a nuke on the city."

"We need to talk to the Tau'ri, we need to find a way to end this thing." ordered Adar

"And how will that happen Mr. President." said a voice Adar knew well as he looked toward the door to see Admiral Adama in the doorway along with a balding man in a Colonel uniform.

"Admiral Adama." said an aid "This is the President of the Colonies you need to show some respect."

"No, it is alright," said the President "Right now I need facts and if bluntness gets me facts, I will gladly deal with it. Go on Admiral, speak freely."

"Sir, do you really think the Tau'ri will care what we say?" asked Adama before he answered his own question. "By your own words we crossed into their boarders, we appeared over one of their world and somehow one of their cities went up in a nuclear fireball."

"But it must of been a mistake, the President wanted to show the Tau'ri that…" started the aid

"And you think that they will fraken care about any of that?" laughed the old colonel who had come in with the Admiral. "I am sorry boy but once nukes are used it doesn't matter what anyone says their attentions where. A nuke going off over a city says "War" it doesn't say "Accident".

"True, but maybe if we explain it to them." stated the young aid to the president, who looked as if he should still be in his freshmen year at college.

"Would it work on us, we the Tau'ri had nuked one of our cities without warning?" asked Adama.

"Well they attacked us without warning." countered the civilian aid

"And from all the reports they haven't used a nuclear weapon against civilians. In fact the civilian targets they have hit are infrastructure which is what we would have done in their place." countered the Colonel, the President had noticed his name tag said Saul on it. "Blowing up a battlestar with a nuke is not the same thing as blowing up a city with a nuke. Battlestars are ships of war and are expected to be targets in a war."

"Well we have reports of the use of poison gas being used by the Tau'ri." countered the civilian aid

"You need to actually read the reports," countered Saul as the President blinked. "Sir, all the Poison gas canisters we have recovered are our own. We stored them on the Pandora which was destroyed by the Tau'ri."

"Are you saying we gassed ourselves?" asked Adar stunned at the idea.

"Likely sir." admitted Adama "We don't even know if the Tau'ri knew that that Pandora was a weapons depo or they were just blowing a hole in our defenses for their bombers."

"Sir, the public doesn't have to know that," explained the civilian aid "We can use the Tau'ri gasses us as a tool to get the people behind us in this struggle. The press is already running with the story about the gas and showing photos of the victims. This could rally the people to the struggle."

"You want me to lie about how so many children died?" asked Adar

"Not lie, sir. The Tau'ri did cause the attack but indirectly." explained the aid "Besides what is more important right now, the truth or getting the people ready for a fight. You need to address the people, to calm the people down and restore order."

"Your right." ordered Adar as he rubbed his chin. "Get a speech ready."

**News of the war with the Tau'ri was on everyone lips in the Colonies and whole cities where in panic, the twin cities of Blaustad and Hadrian on the Colonial world of Virgon was in the same state. **There were a lot of scared people in the cities which sat across from each other in a large bay. The twin cities each held some of the largest skyscrapers in the colonies and from the view of the Tau'ri planners it was as if New York City and Chicago sat across from each other. Connecting the two cities was a massive 24-mile long bridge. So far the only colonial world hit had been Caprica that was about to be change. The Owls came in low and fast, while not designed to carry out bombing runs they had both the range and the cloaking ability, which meant they were the only ships capable of carrying out the strike. With all their technology one thing they could not do was do was actually fire their weapons while cloaked.

It was nearing sunset in the cities and the bridge was full but not of civilians but of military and police personal. The cities had been placed under military control because of the riots, behind the bridge sat the twin harbors where almost a quarter of the shipping on the world came in and out of. When the bridge falls those ships would be trapped and the movement from the factories of the cities would be all but stuck.

The Owls flying only fifteen feet off the water where too low for the Colonial Dradis to even pick them up, it was a fisherman on the water who spotted the incoming threat and got on the wireless but it was too late. The Owls dropped their bombs and instantly cloaked, the bombs they dropped where bunker buster bombs and their target was the multiple pillars, which held up the bridge. When the bombs went off the reinforced concreate became dust, which was unable to hold the weight of the bridge. For a moment the bridge stood still then it began to sway as the colonial forces on the bridge began to panic, it remained standing for less then a minute then in the bridge which had taken almost six years to build came crashing down into the bay. Seeing their bridge, which was the pride of their cities disappearing, caused the city to fall into a panic believing that a nuclear strike had to be coming. To help feed that belief another group of Owls bombed the power grid plunging the city into a blackout. Riots began to grow and as darkness fell the riots grew only larger until the 7th and 8th largest cities in the colonies had fallen into a state of lawless ness.

**After only about an hour asleep in his office chair, General O'Neill was awoken to the sound of a knock on his office door. **His eyes snapped opened as he looked around his office in the Pentagon, on the walls where the normal photos of friends most of SG1 either off world or at his cabin. There was one photo which always caused him to smile, it was when he brought a fishing pole off world and actually went fishing on another world. Also on the wall where photos of his grandchildren and the time he and Thor meet the President.

"Enter." said O'Neill as the door opened as the head of the Joint Chief of Staffs for the US military along with the Vice Chair. Technically O'Neill has head of Home World defense and commander of all US forces off world was the newest member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff but he didn't attend many of the meetings. He spent more time dealing with the off world commanders from the other Tau'ri nations.

"Sirs." greeted General O'Neill as he snapped to attention, these where among the few people who outranked in the entire US military.

"At ease Jack, we know you have had a rough day." said the Head of the Joint Chiefs a four star army General Frank Roose.

"What time is it anyhow?" inquired Jack as he looked at the clock on the wall, he gowned when he saw how little time he had actually gotten some sleep.

"You never get enough sleep in this job." Confirmed the Vice Chair a Marine General Tim Turner.

"Not during times of war, that is for sure." Confirmed Jack

"Well we have the first post-strike data coming in from Caprica." explained General Roose. Jack nodded his head as he stood up and stretched a bit before heading out and then down into the heart of the Pentagon. The entered what was called the War Room, like the Tau'ri military command headquarters in Turkey the room was dominated by a large table only this time there was only room for eight people to stand around it.

"Alright we are all here." Said the Head of the Joint Chiefs to the other Generals and Admirals gathered around the table. Instantly a map holographic map of Caprica city appeared on the table, instead of having it hover at eye level the image stayed at tabletop. The detailed map showed ever column and walkway around the capital of the 12 colonies. The map updated to show deep red marks where the missile strikes had taken place.

Every government building had taken hits in one way or another, they had done this not because of some deep hatred of the departments they had hit. Like the American and the former Soviet Union the Government of the 12 colonies had built underground tunnels which ran from almost every government building out of the city or to another building which connected to a tunnel which lead out the city. Every one of those tunnels had been hit by the Tau'ri in an attempt to get any leaders and aids which could have tried to use them to escape the city. The other targets where the multiple computer data centers which sat in those government buildings. The Colonial computer network was a mess by Tau'ri standards. None of the major networks really connected together but could easily be done with a few key commands and running some wires from building to building. This meant that the computers at the Colonial military office could be brought back online by running a cable to the department of education computers which sat across the road. To prevent that they had to strike all the computer centers.

The last targets which was hit were the transport system, railroads, highway overpasses, public water/power and bridges. This strike was to stop the easy movement of people in and out of the capital; they would have done the same thing in any Earth bound war.

"Looks like we hit all our targets." reported Jack

"Yes, but we did have one major mistake." confirmed the Head of the Chiefs as he tapped a small screen by his position. Within seconds, images of women and children lying in the streets appeared on the screen.

"We knew there would be civilian deaths." Stated Admiral Ramirez as he stood in the white uniform of the United States Navy "It doesn't equal what they did to Valhalla."

"True." confirmed the Vice Head General Turner "However these civilians where killed by poison gas."

There was a moment of quiet as the military men gathered around the table all looked at each other. Gathered around the table was more then 200 years of military experience but all of them feared gas. Since WW1 Gas and Biological weapons was considered the equal of a nuclear strike, so much so that it was official stance in the US military that a biological attack on the United States by another nation it would be answered with a nuclear strike.

"We didn't deploy any gas weapons." Countered Jack "How could they be killed by gas?"

"Because we destroyed the Battlestar Pandora in orbit." Explained the Head of the Chiefs "Turns out the colonials stored Bio weapons onboard and our planners didn't know about it. The canisters fell from obit on their own people."

"So they gassed themselves." said another army General Cox "How come we didn't know the gas was onboard?"

"Turns out they don't consider Biological and chemicals weapons as WMD, so when we searched their system we found out that they stored nuclear weapons because they were classified as WMDs." Explained the vice chief "They actually have them listed alongside Napalm and large size bombs."

"That has to be among the stupidest thing I have ever heard, how could those weapons not be considered WMDs?" asked the another Air Force General Diaz "And why would they store those weapons in orbit where they could fall from orbit."

"And we haven't done anything stupid?" asked Jack with a roll of his eyes "I remember that we flew a nuclear bomb or two across country without guards."

"Yes, that is true," admitted General Diaz humbled by Jack. "But why would they have those weapons aren't their enemies these Cylon robots."

"Some were likely left over from before they were unified together and from our understanding they have a type of gas they developed which eats metal." Explained the Head of the Joint Chief

"A gas which eats metal might be useful against robots." admitted Jack "I would assume they kept some stock around because of that. Either way I am going to go out on a limb and say the Colonials are blaming us for the gas?"

"From all reporters yes." confirmed General Turner

"What is our tactical situation?" asked the Navy General "When can we launch attacks on their ship yards and other centers."

"Overall we are in defensive state of war, too much of our fleet is away on the Pegasus front and the rest of the fleet is either deployed around Valhalla or Earth itself." Explained Jack "Our only real offensive weapons at the moment are Condor bomber and Owl Strikes, the only warship we can spare from the defense line is the Akula but it is heading back to Valhalla to rearm and will not be ready for any real action for at least 12 hours."

"If only we could have sent the Akula to this Scorpia and destroy those shipyards in the opening moments." Complained the Admiral

"We all wanted to do that but the Akula had to remain over Caprica so that the Seals could switch the ZMP with our fake one and to make sure our people remained off world." explained Jack "And with all the defenses around those shipyards sending a flight of Condors would be suicidal for the pilots. We made the best move with the requirements that the Akula had to remain by Caprica."

"We know but we all wish we could have taken out those shipyards." explained the Admiral as he decided to refocus the meeting. "When will the next Condor strike take place and where?"

"We are going to go after shipping lanes and their smaller off world bases." explained Jack "The problem is that we can't keep running these missions none stop, we don't have a lot of bombers stationed on Valhalla and the pilots need rest."

"Also we are shooting hundreds of missiles at any one time, we will burn through our supply very fast of long range missiles." stated the Air force General "What we need is a launching point closer to the 12 colonies from where we can launch Eagles, our fighters can use shorter range missiles easier than the condors."

"We are already planning a takeover of multiple of their smaller space bases," explained the Head of the Joint Chiefs "Problem is until we get more ships back from the Pegasus front we can't carry out any large scale operations."

"What sort of help are we going to get from the Free Jaffa nations or and I can't believe I am saying this the Lucian Alliance factions?" asked Jack

"None, we are on our own here." reported the Head of the Joint Chief "From the reports our best bet of getting help, the Jaffa nation based on Chulak has turned down any military aid."

**The sun was high in the sky as Doctor Daniel Jackson and an SG team moved through a forest on a world Daniel knew all too well, Chulak.** Even though this world was the capital of a faction of free Jaffa which could be considered the closest allies to the Tau'ri all the members of the team where armed. Daniel himself wore a pistol and a Tau'ri made stun gun similar to the Zat gun only it did not make the sound which could give itself away. As they moved through the woods down a well wore path the sound of wood hitting wood filled the air and the smell of meat roasting over an open fire filled the air.

"Wait here." ordered Daniel as the SG team stayed back on top of a small rise as Daniel moved down toward a simple house located in the woods. Outside the house stood a young man with short black hair and the symbol of Apophis tattooed on his forehead. He wore a simple white shirt and held a long training stick in his hand, in front of him was a young girl holding a stick of her own. She hit the pole her father was holding. Sitting nearby with his own training staff in hand was Daniel's old friend Teal'c.

"Welcome Daniel Jackson." greeted Teal'c as the young man's head lifted up and the girl looked at the new comer.

"Teal'c, Rya'c." greeted Daniel

"Why don't you go see how your mother is doing," ordered Teal'c's only son Rya'c to his daughter.

"Yes, daddy." said the little girl.

"It is good to see that she doesn't have the mark of a false god on her forehead." Admitted Teal'c

"Yes, she would have been preparing for the ceremonial to have the tattoo placed on her. In time the marks of our slavers will be gone from our foreheads." confirmed Rya'c with a smile. "But I assume you are here to talk to my father, I will leave you to it."

"It is still hard to believe that I am a grandfather," stated Teal'c as Daniel sat down beside him.

"At least it isn't as confusing as Jack, his clone is married and has three kids." Stated Daniel

"Indeed." stated Teal'c before lowering his head. "I must apologize to you Daniel Jackson."

"Teal'c it isn't your fault." reassured Daniel "It isn't your fault that your council voted against helping us militarily against the Colonials."

"I understand there reasons we are among the weakest of the free Jaffa but we owe you so much, we should all put our differences aside and repay you for what you did." explained Teal'c "Instead the council will do nothing."

"If it makes you feel better the other Jaffa nations have said they will not help us either." Reported Daniel "Most say that they repaid us when they held off the Ori while we kept Earth safe. I must admit they have a point, the Jaffa and the rest of the humans in the galaxy took more of the blunt from the Ori when we did."

"Indeed, but if it wasn't for you then we would all be enslaved again to false gods." countered Teal'c as he stood up. "My government may not be willing to help you but I will help my friends and my second home."

"Thank you Teal'c." said Daniel

**It was well past midnight on Valhalla as Colonel Jack O'Neill Jr. looked out of the side door of one of a medical Owl.** The only real difference between the medical owl and a normal owl was that the medical one had no weapons and had duel side doors, which opened up under the wings instead of a back ramp. The doors where open as Jack looked down at the landscape of the city he had called him. The Owl flew over the docks which was the closest populated area to the point of detention over the lake. Nothing remained, the only structures, which showed that humans had once been there where the twisted remains of the loading cranes and the metal lumps, which, had once been trains. Jack had been put with a team of marines who had searched the remains of a lake front boating club for survivors, they found none.

"Damn those colonials." cursed one of the marines who looked out the door at the remains of the yard. "No chance anyone made it through that."

"None." Confirmed Jack as the Owl's pilot lead them back toward Celin, the shield had been lowered but everyone was still on edge. As Jack looked down he noticed something.

"Pilot land in that clearing over there." ordered Jack

"Sir, our orders are to report to base so that you can get some rest," countered the pilot

"Land there." Ordered Jack as the pilot lowered his head and followed the orders of the Colonel. The Owl's engines kicked up dirt as it landed in what had once been a road. Jack jumped out of the Owl and headed straight toward the remains of a house. A marine followed suit as they moved into the home.

"Sir why are we here?" asked the marine as he stood in the living room of the house. The entire top half of the house was gone so that they could see the sky what had once been a ceiling. Then he looked at one of the photos which had stayed on the wall somehow. He saw a family with three kids and a dog, his eyes widened as he saw who the older man in the photo was. "Oh…this is your house."

"Yes." confirmed Jack as he looked around, the life his family had built here was gone. Jack bent down and picked up his and Cassie's wedding photo off the ground, brushing away the broke glass.

"Sir, if your family is back at Celin why come here now? There is still some radiation and there are no reason for us to stay here." explained the Marine.

"Your almost true." Said Jack and he moved toward the door to the basement, he flung the door opened and moved down stairs. His flashlight pierced the darkness as he moved down, unlike the top floors the basement had remained pretty much intact. The sound of whining filled the air, as Jack moved toward a side door.

"The teams did a sweep of this place, there shouldn't be anyone in here." Said the marine as the whining grew loader.

"They did a life sign detector sweep," explained Jack as he opened the door to show a very scared dog shaking in the remains of the house. The dog took a moment before realizing who was standing at the door in strange cloths, once he did the dogs almost tackled Jack.

"Which is set for humans." stated the Marine.

"Yes." confirmed Jack as he grabbed a leash from above the washing machine. "My kids will be so happy to see him."

It did not take long for the Owl to return to the Forward operation base or FOB. The FOB now sat on the same soccer field that his daughter was playing on when the blast hit. Now it was a tent city as those who's homes had been destroyed in the blast stayed here, every hotel was full but it wasn't enough. Military personal stood guard as others prepared Pumas APC to head back out into the blast area. As Jack got off the Owl, his dog Stanley began to wage his tail again, the dog had hated the flight.

Jack stopped and looked around; there was a rather large area where the medical personal was treating the wounded. From his view the wounds appeared to be mostly cuts and stiches, those who had worse injuries where being treated at one of the hospitals which was still standing. Then Jack saw a large pile of black body bags which sat in an area fenced off from the others. Jack moved away and headed the motor pool, a large number of buses waited to take any civilians they found deeper into the city and a larger refugee camp in the center of Celin. Jack did not get on any of the buses instead, he moved to a waiting military vehicle. After showing his ID to the driver, he found himself being driven back to the Military command tower.

It did not take long, he swiped his ID at the checkpoint on the first floor and talked with one of the guards who double checked everything. Jack repeated the process three more times before reaching the command officers quarters near the top floor. One of the benefits of being the "son" of the Supreme commander of all Tau'ri forces was in situations like this his family had a nice place to stay instead of a refugee camp. He walked into the room, letting Stanley off the lease as he entered. Instantly the dog rushed toward where the kids were sleeping. Maybe the dog knew they were sleeping or he was tired from all the stress but Stanley curled up along the young O'Neills. There was only one bed in the room so the three kids where sharing the bed. They did not even notice the addition of the dog but they would in the morning. Jack kicked off his shoes and moved toward a chair in the corner of the room. He was rubbing his eyes when the door opened and his wife entered the room. Like him she had rushed into the field the moment they knew their kids where safe, he had gone out into the field to save what he could while she tried to save anyone search teams found at a hospital.

Cassie was dressed in a blue medical cloths with her hair pulled back into a bun, she moved toward Jack who embraced her and held her close.

"Bad day on all fronts." said Jack

"Understatement of the year." countered Cassie as she placed her face into her husband's chest. "So many people were burned; I am talking 3rd degree burns over most of the body. The burn unit is overwhelmed and on top of everything is the radiation. With all this technology we have now, you would think we would be able to help them more then what we can but we will be lucky if half the people live."

Jack did not know what to say, so he said nothing he only pulled his wife closer.

"Did you find anyone alive out there?" asked Cassie

"No, I don't think we will anymore." admitted Jack as he looked at Stanley. "I found him."

"The kids will love that when they wake up, what is the house like?" asked Cassie

"Aside from the basement and some of the first floor it is all gone." explained Jack as he pulled out their wedding photo. "I did bring this back along with the dog."

A knock at the door caused both of them to stop talking. As quickly but as quietly as possible Jack opened the door to find a General Raj-Sing standing in the doorway.

"General." said Jack as he snapped to attention.

"At ease Colonel." ordered Raj-Sing as he saw Cassie standing there. "Doctor O'Neill it is good to see you again."

"General, what is it?" inquired Cassie as the Indian General turned toward Jack.

"I am afraid orders just came down from Earth, and we have a mission for your husband," explained General Raj-Sing as he handed Jack a computer tablet. "Colonel O'Neill your heading back to the 12 colonies of Kobol, report tomorrow morning for a full official briefing, in the mean time here is the outline of your goals. We are going to war and you will be in the vanguard."

**High above their heads sitting in orbit over Celin sat the HMS Britannia, the Tau'ri battleship like so many other ships where on high alert and in a defensive position.** Their mission was to protect Valhalla and they were not going to fail this time. Standing by one of the windows facing the planet was Doctor Woolsey, he had been brought onboard once he arrived in the system. They had offered to transport him to the surface but he had turned them down, he needed time to think before making the journey to Earth.

As he looked at the planet he saw the electric lights of the Capital of Valhalla, Celin glowing down below. Only now there was a giant black hole where no electric lights glowed only a fait red from fires still burning on the surface.

"From up here it gives you a good view at what damage can be down with the push of a button." Said a new voice as Woolsey turned to see his main aid on Caprica the Chinese man Fang Gan.

"Yes, it does Fang. I am sure the colonials are saying the same thing about what we did to Caprica City." said Woolsey

"True, but we didn't drop a nuke and we could have done a lot worse then that." countered Fang Gan "I read a report where the Asgard blew up whole star systems in their war with the Replicators. We could have done the same and ended this whole thing in three quick moves, one for each star that their planets orbit."

"And what good will that do." countered Woolsey "I am not even sure how this war will even end, what sort of peace will we gain. We are not going to occupy their worlds, apart from the ZPMs they have nothing we want. The colonials will always assume that they are the true tribes of Kobol and that we are supposed to be under them. I see no route to peace that will not end in more wars."

"This may be true." admitted Fang Gan "But if I may be so bold this war may be the best thing to ever happen to the nations of Earth."

That statement caught Woolsey off guard as he looked at the elderly Chinese man and then back at the nuclear devastation down on the planet.

"I fail to see what you're talking about." stated Woolsey

"Did you know that Germany is actually a younger nation then the United States?" asked Fang Gan "And no I am not saying counting when it reunified after the fall of the Soviet Union."

"Yes, I knew that. There used to be dozens of small kingdoms which ruled Germany in the 1870s I believe." confirmed Woolsey as he wondered where this history lesson was going. "What about it?"

"One of the major reasons those small nations which had fought against each other so much came together was because of the threat France posed to them," explained Fang Gan with an old man's knowing smile on his lips. "We are in the same situation only made larger, we the nations of the Tau'ri are those small German states which had so long fought each other but we are now uniting against a common threat, in our case the Colonials."

"We were already united," countered Woolsey

"Yes…yes on paper but how much trust do you think the Russians have of the Germans or the United States has with my government?" Countered Fang Gan "Yes, we are allied but we do not fully trust each other. We told the world about the Stargate when there was no threat to Earth to avoid a panic, this was a wise move but we should have told them years ago when the ORI where still a threat. Nothing gets people to put aside their differences more than a common enemy."

"You're claiming that this war with the Colonials will bring the Tau'ri closer together," said Woolsey

"Yes, we have already seen it." countered Fang Gan "That photo of Americans and Chinese raising the Tau'ri flag, the Israeli and Saudi soldiers working together to clear rubble and find our people. This war will bring us together, the Colonials may have done more to assure that Earth rises to the position it should have in this galaxy more than anyone else could have."

"It still cost us so many lives," countered Woolsey

"And it will cost us thousands more but in the end the deaths of everyone in the blast and all of which will follow them into the fires of war will forge the bond between the nations of the Tau'ri until in time there will be no Chinese, American, British, Russian or any other nation." explained Fang Gan. "In time we will all be Tau'ri first."

**Well I hope you liked this chapter and until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	35. Chapter 35

**Chapter 35 Political Fallout part 2**

The sky was still pitch black but the first light of dawn could be seen in the distance as the Condor bomber Elsa's Revenge lined up for a landing back on Valhalla. They had flown the first strike against the colonials, the first of many and now they had to land safely. It was a textbook landing as the condor touched down on the runway and rolled to a stop before using just a little of its engines thrust to move to its position by the hangers. Ground crews rushed out and using small carts moved the condors back into a single line, fuel trucks moved forward to replace the fuel. Like all the Tau'ri fighters and bombers, they did not have liquid fuels instead, they had small naquadah generators. The thing was the size of the generator that they had meant that the reactor was not self-sustainable like the ones of ships, so they had to change out tubes which contained fresh naquadah for the generator to use. The cylinders where only about the size of a poster tube and on the condor there was five of them and all of them where interchangeable so within ten minutes the bombers where fueled. Rearming them took some more time as missiles had to be brought out of the armory and placed on the wings and in the bomb bays. While others were doing at the pilots checked in with ground command and got their latest missions.

All the bomber crews had been trained on the older earth bombers, which took a lot longer to complete a mission then the condors. Once in Hyperspace the craft only needed one pilot so the other pilot could sleep.

"Any issues?" asked a ground crew member as Andrea got out of the bomber using the built in hatch located in the bottom of the craft by the front landing gear.

"None at all." confirmed Andrea as she undid her helmet and let her blonde hair out. She breathed in the cool night air as she looked around at the crews doing their jobs. "Any news on our front?"

"Well word is some eagles are hunting down some escaped colonial Raptors which are trying to make it back to their space," explained the ground crew member.

"I thought Eagles couldn't reach Colonial space which is why we have to go in without fighter escort?" countered Andrea

"Your right the max range of the Eagle is right up to the boarder and the colonial shipping is beyond that but they are hunting closer to Valhalla," explained the ground crew.

"Well I hope they kill all the colonials they find." added Andrea

"Your get no argument from me, however right now I am more worried about the colonials on the ground here then I am those trying to make it back to their own space." stated the ground crew as Andrea raised an eyebrow. "Some of those damn colonials made it down here, either in a crash landing or because they had nowhere else to go. The army got most of them but they are still reports of some on the loose."

A rumble filled the air as everyone looked away from what they were doing an up toward the source, there descending down was a ship which looked like it belonged more underwater then in the sky. The lights along the side showed the Tau'ri flag painted on its side which told them it was one of theirs but not what it was.

"Never seen a ship like that before," admitted Andrea as the ship headed toward a landing area normally saved for Daedalus class ships.

**Onboard the Akula everyone was at their stations as the ship prepared to make it is landing on Valhalla.** Yes, they could have loaded the ship with nuclear weapons using Asgard beaming technology or even the rings but a rather large piece of wreckage from a colonial Battlestar had brushed against the clocked ship so a visual check and possible fix was required.

"Docking systems all green, preparing for docking." Said the American XO, they were all navy men onboard so they knew that docking meant landing. Down below landing gear extended as the Akula touched down on Valhalla for the first time.

"Good job everyone, now lets get this ship fixed up and back in the fight." ordered Captain Ramius

**Elsewhere on Valhalla** **Lieutenant James Chontos of the Colonial Navy sat in a small concreate room with a metal table bolted to the ground. **There was secondary smaller table with a strange device sitting on it. The device had an oval shaped base with a long neck, which shot out of the base to about his eye level. On their side of the neck where two small boxes with what appeared to be cameras of some kind on them, that wasn't that big of a surprise he expected to be filmed but the thing was that the cameras seamed locked on his face and followed him wherever he moved his head.

Suddenly the door opened as a young man in a black suit walked in carrying one of those small computers the Tau'ri seamed to love.

"Hello Lieutenant I am Jack Ryan of the CIA." said the man as he sat down. "You know James, I am actually somewhat happy to intergrade you."

"What, why?" inquired James

"Because you can't make the how Tom Clancy jokes to me about my name." explained Jack Ryan without any other explanation. "Now shall we begin, now I assume you under that you are now a Prisoner of War."

"I understand." stated James

"The issue is that your government has been unified for so long that you don't have up to date rules for POWs and so at the moment we are kind of winging it. I understand that my government will be sending a message to yours about POW and general rules of war." stated Ryan as he pulled out a piece of paper from a his pocket and lied it out in front of the James. "This is a bulleted list of the rules we are going to give your government about the treatment of POWs. Now take a moment to read this over and then sign."

James looked down the list it was the same as the rights of prisoners in the colonies, it said that they would not torture him, they would feed him and even let him write to his family but any letters would be searched. The two issues which stood out was that he didn't have the right to a lawyer and that they would copy any treatment done by his government to Tau'ri POWs on him up to executions. He then took up a pen, which had been attached to the table by a thin chain; he signed his name and pushed the paper over.

"Good, now that we got that out of the way let's start with the questions." said Ryan "Now Lieutenant tell me did you carry the firebomb called the Fires of Hades under the wings of your Viper?"

James held his breath for a moment before finally answering the question.

"No." stated James "I carried a fire bomb but not Hades fire under my wing."

"Nice try Lieutenant." stated Jack Ryan as he turned the computer to face him. In the top corner was a red box. "See this tells me you are lying. It isn't as fun as interesting as digging the true out of a cloud of lies but it really cuts the time down."

"I am not lying." snapped James which was in fact a lie.

"Yes, you are." countered Jack before turning around and pointing at the strange item on the table. "See that is what we call a Za'tarc Detector version III. It used to only be tell when a person is hiding something now it can flat out tell me you're lying."

James gulped.

"Now shall we try it again," inquired Jack Ryan "Did you carry Fires of Hades on your wings?"

"Yes." Confirmed James as Ryan nodded his head and moved on to the next question.

**Admiral Adama sat in the current beating heart of the colonial military, located over five miles away from the Presidential bunker but connected to it by a long train tunnel was the Colonial Military Emergency Headquarters Caprica.** The CMEH was the one of 12 emergency headquarters spread out across each of the worlds, being the capital world the CMEH on Caprica was the best equipped and most modern of the CMEH centers.

Admiral Adama was maybe the second or third oldest person around the command table, the admirals gathered around the table was the highest most of the entire command structure in the Colonial Navy. The four systems admirals who commanded the entire forces in each of the four star systems which held the major worlds of the colonies, there was also the heads of the five fleets which protected the boarder. Alongside them there was also the Admiral in charge of Military Research, the Admiral in Charge of the Scopria Shipyards/supplies, lastly the head of colonial Navy military intelligence and last the head of the entire colonial Navy Admiral Nagata. Next to these men and women, him as head of the Mothball fleet seamed of little importance and in fact most times the head of the mothball fleet was seen as one step above retirement.

"So we are going to war." Said Admiral Nagata as she stood before the gathered assembly of Admirals, in total there was 13 admirals all looking at her. "What is the state of the fleets?"

"Our defenses on the surface appears good but with the Tau'ri cloaking technology we can't be sure." Admitted the head of the 1st fleet which was in charge of the defense of Picon, Caprica, Gemenon and Tauron. Since he was in trusted with the defense of four worlds one of which was the capital and another which was the heart of the military production center his 1st fleet was largest.

"Luckily we only have to worry about those small ships, Owls having cloaking we have no proof that their larger ships can cloak." Said the head of the 7th fleet, since she was only charged with the protection of two worlds in Virgon and Leonis her fleet was the smallest of the active fleets.

"Can we be so sure of that? The Tau'ri have surprised us in the past." countered the head of the 9th fleet, his fleet was possibly the strangest since his fleet protected Scorpia which was home of the colonial shipyard he had the newest and most advanced ships. He also had to worry about constant threats of uprisings coming from religious groups on Sagittarian which meant he had the most marine landing ships of all of them. Most of his forces where actually based on the Libran or one of it's twin moons.

"It is impossible." Reassured head of Colonials Navy Research. "The power requirements would be laughable large compared to the size covered."

"And yet they are able to cover their smaller ships." countered the head of the 2nd fleet, his fleet was in charge of the three worlds of Aerilon, Canceron and Aquaria.

"They are smaller and I would bet that most of those ships are full of power generators," explained the Researcher.

"Either way, what matters is that we boast our defenses and reactive the mothball fleet." said Admiral Nagata as she looked at Admiral Adama "When can we expect that to happen?"

"Best estimates is that I can give you a third of the ships in reserve in two months with another four months for total reactivation at the earliest," reported Adama as the other Admirals looked at him.

"Admiral Adama, I thought that the mothball fleet was kept in a state of readiness so that they can be activated within ten days." inquired the head of one of the five attack fleets, which patrolled around colonial space. "Why the delay?"

"The delay is twofold." started Adama as he looked at the admirals gathered in the room. "Over the past decades the money toward the mothball fleet has been used elsewhere so the man who preceded me focused on keeping the battlestars ready, leaving the other ships to decay. Now that we need every ship it will take time to get those ships ready. The other major issue can't be solved with new oil and replacing parts, it is the fact that the ships where used in the Cylon war and are not as advanced as the newer ships."

"Why would that matter?" inquired the Admiral of 1st fleet.

"Because if we just put a bunch of freshly trained civilians who are used to having more computer power on their phones into one of these ships they have no idea how it works." Explained Adama "Give me a bunch of veterans from the Cylon war and I can give you most of the battlestars in 15 days but sadly most of the people who could do the job and either too old for the military or dead."

"You have made your point, maybe we can find a middle path," said Admiral Nagata "Could we call up some veterans to help train the new men and women on the ships."

"That is one idea I wanted to bring up today." Admitted Adama as Admiral Nagata nodded her head before moving on.

"Now, the President has ordered up a level 2 draft of the population," said Admiral Nagata as the Admirals nodded their heads. They all knew that the draft system had five levels based on ages, the first level was drafting men and women between the ages of 24 and 44 years old, the second call up level was for the ages between 20 and 48. This was the most common call up due, the next two levels where last used during the Cylon war, level 3 was everyone between 18 and 50, and level 4 was everyone between 16 and 55. The last level was one officially on the books but never actually used a level 5 draft was open to everyone between the ages of 12 and 60 years old. "So we can expect a whole lot more men and women getting in the uniform."

"And more uprisings on Sagattarion when the draft notices start arriving." Said the head of the 1st fleet.

"Not really from all reports there are lines out of the door at many recruitment centers all over Sagattarion." countered the head of the 9th fleet, this got a lot of people to look at him. Sagattarion was known for avoiding military duty for multiple of religious reasons. "Seams that a lot of the local priests are calling for a holy mission to reclaim Kobol, we may not even have to do a draft on Sagattarion because we will likely reach the numbers we would get in a draft."

"Alright lets move on, the President has ordered us to plan a counter attack on Kobol with the hopes of taking the world from the Tau'ri." said Admiral Nagato as the Admirals all looked at each other, they all knew that would be next to impossible for any time in the near future. "I have already told the President that we can't land marines on Kobol but he wants us to look into special forces and hitting the Tau'ri the way they have hit us. The President wants us to attack Earth, he hopes that an attack on Earth will bring our cousins to their senses."

"How many years does he have to wait?" asked the Colonial Intelligence as others looked at him. "While we were looking though the data we took from the recon drones that went to Valhalla, we found Earth's location."

"We did?" asked Admiral Nagata, not even she had heard that. "Where is it?"

"Far outside of our reach." stated the Intelligence officer as he quickly explained how they found a TV report on a historical program that showed Valhalla's location from Earth. The image showed a star map with both worlds system highlighted, then using that and another two known systems shown on the map they figured out where Earth was. "In order to get to Earth it would take 37 years of constant jumping to reach Earth, that is one way."

"And yet they can cover that distance in days." said Adama with a shake of his head.

"Admiral I share your concerns about the technological gap between us and the colonials but we hold many advantages." Stated Admiral Nagata "Or am I the only one who noticed that the Tau'ri have not sent a single warship into our space. Apart from their bombers and their transports we have seen none of their ships."

"This may be good for us," said another Admiral. "They must have most of their ships gathered around their world of Valhalla, that may mean that they don't have a lot of ships to spare."

"I agree, remember they all but admitted to us that until recently we were more advanced than they were but now they have access to knowledge we can only dream of." confirmed Adama "Not only that we have to look at everything else in the favor of the Tau'ri."

"I know what you mean," confirmed Admiral Nagata "The Tau'ri have shown that they have major advantages, most of all their stealth technology and their FTL systems which allows them freedom of movement through our space. On top of that their ships are more advanced and therefor more powerful which means they can destroy multiple of our ships for everyone one we take."

"That is true sir, but I was personally thinking about two other things in the Tau'ri on their side." admitted Adama as the eyes of the head of the Colonial Navy fell on him. "Ma'am, they openly admit that they have fought in multiple long wars not only against themselves but recently against alien races. That means they have more experienced veteran soldiers, sailors and marines on their side and their public is more experienced at dealing with war."

"Admiral we fought the Cylons which has to be a larger war then anything the Tau'ri have ever experienced," countered the younger Admiral.

"That was almost 40 years ago," countered an older admiral. "Admiral Adama is right there. We have to look upon the fact that we have not truly fought a war against humans since we where united together as a single government. Yes we have had some small terrorist groups rise up large enough to claim small parts of land for their own, but they were never a real threat."

"And the Tau'ri are." confirmed Admiral Nagata with a nod of her head. "You are correct Admiral; luckily we have something the Tau'ri doesn't."

"Ma'am, I don't believe faith will be much of a shield against the Tau'ri." countered a younger admiral believing he knew where this was going.

"I was not talking about that, I was talking about the fact that we are 12 worlds." Stated Admiral Nagata "We likely outnumber the Tau'ri in population and ability to pull on multiple resources spread out across a wide part of space. We have numbers on our side and once we get our training programs going and our industry turning out war material we can end this war in time. Also we may have a way to end this war fast."

"How is that sir?" inquired Adama "The President may want an invasion but that is next to impossible, we would need countless maps of the world, the Tau'ri defenses before we even consider a landing."

"True, but like you said the Tau'ri are waging a war against another race. If we can strike at them hard before they are able to mobilize their forces we can force them into coming to the table and end this foolish war," explained Admiral Nagata as she rubbed her chin, "There are ways we can shock them into coming to the table without launching a full invasion."

"Ma'am if I may we can place missiles on the drones and launch surprise attacks on their world, if we load them up with the right stuff we can force them into peace talks." offered the colonial intelligence officer.

"The President will never allow a nuclear strike on Kobol, if what the Tau'ri said is true if we destroy any more of Kobol we will lose all support with the religious groups." Countered Adama

"Well we can load missiles with Hades fire and maybe repay the Tau'ri for "drop" that gas on us by dropping some on them," offered the intelligence officer. "besides what is the worst that can happen, if we hit them hard enough in the first go they will not be able to strike back at us hard. Also we can hand out gas masks to the people to prepare them."

"I admit I don't like this idea, but I will bring it up to the President," said Admiral Nagata with a shake of her head. "In the end it is his call."

**Thousands of light years away from Caprica a meeting of World Leaders was taking place at the United Nations building in New York City.** The spot was chosen since a location for an official Tau'ri meeting hall for all current 55 member nations could not be decided upon. In addition, it was hopped that some day that the UN would be replaced by the Tau'ri council. The world leaders mingled together discussing events and brainstorming the ideas that their aids and military personal had thought of. The center of the body of leaders was the leaders from the big eight nations of the United States, Brazil, Great Brittan, France, Germany, Russia, India and China. Also allowed in the inner circle were the leaders from Turkey, South Korea, Japan, Canada, Australia and lastly South Africa.

These 14 nations where going to be center stage, all but South Africa was in the inner circle because of their military strength that they would bring to the table. South Africa was there for a political one, the current President of South Africa was the head of the lower body of the Tau'ri joint government alliance. To the average American point of view, South Africa was like the Speaker of the House to the Tau'ri high council.

"So it seems that we are in a pickle," stated the British PM. "Our main force is in Pegasus and will not be arriving back for at least 14 days."

"We can hold the line until them arrive." reassured the Russian President

"The People want action, they want us to strike back hard and fast." countered the South African President. "However we cannot allow another strike to happen to Valhalla and most of all here, people are almost as scared as they are angry one more good fright, may cause panic."

"We will hit them back with Owls and Condor strikes until we can free up some ships," explained the American President. "Sadly the planned defense lines are stretched because we are coving a gap in our sensor net left open when we destroyed our own look out station when we first made contact with the Colonials. If we had that station it would free up almost a dozen ships while keeping us alerted to any threats."

"Do we have any ships to spare?" asked the Canadian leader

"Yes, three ships but two of them where on the far side of the galaxy and are racing toward Valhalla. They will arrive in four days; the other ship is over the Cylon home world helping them with a mission and should finish in another day. From there it will not take long to come back to Valhalla."

"So we will have three ships free, we can do some damage to them then." said the German Chancellor. "Maybe we can get the Cylons to help us."

"Getting the Cylons involved in direct conflict with the Colonials may do nothing more than bring more colonials into the fight." Countered the Brazilian President "We could ask them to give us intelligence; they are already on the inside."

"We are going to do that and ask them to deploy there fleet along the border, this should get the Colonial's notice and keep them focused on the Cylons while we build up our forces." confirmed the British PM

"It is a shame that the free Jaffa and the Lucian Alliance members that are friendly toward us aren't helping in any way." cursed the French President.

"Well that may change, we got a message from one of the smaller Lucian Alliance groups, they want to help us." said the British PM as the others looked at her. "They will not send ships but they are willing and able to build the cargo ships."

"Why would they do that?" asked the German Chancellor

"I don't really know, I am sending an aid to talk to them tomorrow." Explained the PM "On a slightly different note, the Langarains are moving to declare war on the Colonials with us. They are having a slightly longer debate then we are, but it seems as if the current plan is to put the going to war and joining the Tau'ri in a group vote before the people."

"It would be nice to have more people to fight and build the ships and weapons we need to win this war," confirmed the American President. "It may take time to get them up to our level but it would be time well spent if push comes to shove."

"Agreed." confirmed everyone around

"I am concern about what our actions should be if they hit us again with another WMD." stated the Chinese Premier "We should agree upon actions that should be followed ahead of time, just in case."

"True, we are preparing a message to send to the Colonial government in a few hours. We will explain the rules of war as we see it and also state that any use of WMDs on civilians will be matched in kind." confirmed the PM "The Pope, the Dalai Lama and other religious leaders have asked to visit the blast zone on Valhalla, I plan to go with them. Anyone else interested, it would be a sign of unity."

"I will go," said the South Korean President as the other world leaders nodded their heads in agreement.

"**War, we are at war people," said the voice of the anchor of the Colonial News network as images of Caprica city appeared beside him on split screen.** Images of the burning city along with video of blurred out bodies lying in the street. "The Tau'ri have murdered our people in cold blood, they have used poison gas against innocent people. They claim that this strike was because of an attack they say we did on their world of Valhalla which is likely our true home of Kobol."

The anchor paused for a moment; he was normally on at 9pm and hosted his own special political and news show. One of the major complaints about his show was that it was more about his own political view then the actual facts but the ratings where so good that the owners looked the other way.

"Kobol is the true home of all man and they have invaded our true home and renamed it in the names of the enemies of the Lords of Kobol. If you come home and find someone had broken into your home you have the right to do anything to get them out of your home. " stated the Anchor "If someone breaks into your home your allowed to use everything you can to stop them. They have are the enemies of all the tribes of man, all true followers of the lords of Kobol and every true member of the colonies should join the military at once."

**Unaware to the Anchor his image was being seen not only by the people of the 12 colonies of Kobol but by the mortal enemies of the 12 colonies, the Cylons.** Each of the humanoid Cylon models stood around a long table looking at the screens, which showed not only that broadcast but others taken from the major news networks.

"So the humans are now at war, just like we wanted." said a five as he crossed his arms over his chest. "With any luck they will weaken themselves far enough that we can take both of them out."

"That will not happen," countered a Six as she looked across the table at the five. "The Tau'ri are just too powerful, they will win this war."

"I disagree." Countered the One as he looked around at the other Cylons, none of them trusted him ever since he admitted he knew who the final five were. They still did not and likely wouldn't until he told them who the final five where. "Since the Tau'ri have said they are fighting some group called the Wraith it is likely that most of their forces are off fighting them. If the Colonials are able to strike Valhalla hard enough before the Tau'ri can deploy forces to stop them, then they would be in a position to seek peace."

"This cannot be allowed," said a Four "Any peace with the Colonials in control would mean them turning over Valhalla or Kobol as they would call it and we can't let the Colonials grow like that."

"Agreed." confirmed the three as she looked around the room. "The Tau'ri must have thought about the same thing, they sent a message to us. They want us to deploy ships along the border with the Colonials."

"They want us to go to war with the Colonials?" asked an eight

"No, they know just like we do that if we enter this fight then it will only unite the Colonials against the Tau'ri." Stated Cavil "They want us to deploy the fleet at the boarder so that the Colonials would have to put more ships along the border meaning they would have fewer ships to send at the Tau'ri."

"So it is no real risk for us and it could prevent the colonials from getting a quick knock out against the Tau'ri." said Six as she rubbed her chin. "From the reports we got from the party we sent with them to our real home world they have been nothing but helpful to us, I see no reason why we shouldn't return the favor."

It was rare when the Six and the One both agreed on what to do and within moments the orders where going out and the Cylon fleet was on the move.

**Back in the Presidential bunker, President Richard Adar was looking over the speech he was going to give to the people of the 12 colonies of Kobol.** He was sitting behind a mockup of the same desk which he had back in this office in the Presidential Estate. That building was now nothing more than a burning mass of rubble but the behind him was a perfect mockup of his office down to even the jar of candy he had sitting on the corner of his desk. He took a breath and looked at the cameraman, with a simple nod of his head the countdown began. When it reached zero his image was broadcast across all the colonies, every network and wireless wave which wasn't being used for military messages would carry his message.

"Good evening my fellow Citizens of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, I am giving this message with a heavy heart." opened Adar "This morning when I addressed the Quorum and you all I had the highest hopes that we were about to enter a new golden age. Our cousins while not with us would be our friendly neighbors, we would have returned to our home of Kobol and the Colonies will grow like they never had before."

He paused for a moment and whipped away a small tear which had started down his cheek.

"Instead we are entering a dark time one full of tests which we will have to overcome, however just like Hercules when he was given his 12 trails we will come together and reach that golden age." promised Adar. "We will rebuild what we have lost all while we prepare ourselves for the trails, our military is the strongest in recorded history we will wish that the Tau'ri hadn't launched their attack on us, that they hadn't dropped poison gas on innocent civilians and that they turned their backs on the Lords of Kobol. We will face these trails and we will come out better because of it. Now good night and may the Lords of Kobol protect and guide us all."

With that the cameras turned off and Adar took a death breath wondering what the future held for him and the colonies.

**Well I hope you liked this chapter, I actually planned to release this days ago but I rewrote this chapter at least three times until I was happy with it. Now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	36. Chapter 36

**Chapter 36 Setting the Board**

President Richard Adar was having the worse day of his life, he had just finished his speech to the Colonies about the war which had come to their doorsteps when two major blows hit him within minutes. First the official list of those who had died in the attacks on the Quorum finally reached his desk, of the 1500 Quorum members, priests and military leaders who were in the hall for his speak only 857 people had made it out alive. Of those 435 of them where injured badly enough that they were in the hospital some of whom where not going to live through the night. He was still running through the names a lot of whom where his political allies, it seems that a Tau'ri mortar round had hit the Caprican delegation right in the center killing over half of the 100 members in one hit.

He was about to move on when another aid ran up to him carrying a laptop computer.

Sir, a message from the battlestar Helios." reported an aid. "A Tau'ri Owl, appeared by them and delivered a message both over the wireless and by dropping a pod with the same information in paper and computer form."

"What did it say?" inquired the President

"Sir, it is basically a list of demands that we have to meet for them to end this war." Said the said

"There is no stopping this," admitted President Adar as he rubbed his temples. "The religious leaders and the other groups will accept nothing short of Kobol and they really want Earth as well. The people will also want revenge for what they did to Caprica City. No they will not allow me to end this war."

The aid just stood there and listened to his president.

"Tell me what their demands are, maybe we can work out a path which will make everyone semi happy to avoid this war from growing." said Adar

"Sir, I don't think you will like this." said the aid as he handed the laptop over, the President looked at the first three demands and to the surmise of everyone he threw the laptop against the wall.

"Fraken damn it, there is no way I can accept any of those!" yelled Adar

"Mr. President what are their demands?" inquired his oldest political advisor

"Their first fraken demand is that we accept they are totally independent and release all claims to Valhalla, or Kobol as we call it." snapped Adar "Then it gets even better, they want me and my entire administration plus military leaders who took part in the operation to send that force to Kobol turned over to Tau'ri justice. They actually think I would hand myself over to them to be shot."

"They don't." said the Political Advisor "They are giving you demands that will make their people happy, remember their leaders are in the same boat as you. Even if they want peace their people are crying out for war."

"And their other demands are just as worse, they want all of our nuclear weapons and the number of battlestars will be cut in half." said Adar "And that was just the first three, I am sure there is more."

"There are." Confirmed the aid who went to pick up the laptop his president had just thrown. "They also send a list of what they call the rules for war and the treatment of prisoners."

"I will look at them in the morning, I need some sleep." said the President as he rubbed his temples. "Wait, did anything jump out to you?"

"Only three things sir." said the aid "First that they will not target none military space travel for 24 hours but after that they will engage in unrestricted operations against any ship not marked as a hospital or civilian medical aid ship. They claim they will do this because they don't want us to send military supplies on civilian ships."

"Ok, we expected that. The Cylons did the same thing only they hit everything, robots don't need medicine. What are the other two?" inquired the President

"That they will treat any more attack on Valhalla or any other world with Weapons of Mass Destruction which for them includes Nuclear, Chemical and Biological weapons as a red line and they will respond in kind with their own WMDs on any target they see fit." Explained the aid as Adar blinked. "Basically it sounds like if we use our WMD or Chemical/Biological weapons on civilian targets they respond with their own."

"They consider Chemical and Biological weapons on the same level as a nuclear bomb?" asked Adar "Have they ever seen what is left after a nuke, there is no way a chemical or bio weapon can equal that. A hellish landscape that cannot be used compared to something that fades over time. They can't be put in the same class."

"They must mean that if we hit them with a biological weapon they will hit back with their own biological weapons." advised the political advisor "They can't possibly mean that if we hit them with a biological weapon they will hit us with a nuke, the two are no were near the same."

"Our cousins are very strange." Confirmed the aid "The last one basically says that we have 24 hours to respond to their demands and after that the gloves will come off as they say."

"I see." confirmed Adar

"They act like they are holding back." Laughed the aid

"In a way they are, they haven't used nukes against civilians which is good considering if what they are saying is true we used a nuke against their civilians." stated the senior political advisor as the door to the room opened up and Admiral Nagata walked into the room. Like everyone else she looked as if she had not slept in weeks, still her uniform was clean as it could be.

"Mr. President." said Nagata as she snapped to attention. "You wanted options for a counter attack on the know Tau'ri positions."

"And you have some?" inquired Adar as he gave the admiral his full attention.

"Yes, but at the moment the first one which I would recommend would take at least 20 days to get into position." reported Nagata

"That will not do Admiral." said the political advisor "We have to strike back hard and fast or else the people will think that we are weak and they will begin to lose hope."

"Well sorry but there is only so much we can do, Kobol is far away and we need to get supplies ready, do multiple recons before we attempt to send any more ships toward that world." countered Admiral Nagata "We would be walking into a death trap, the first mission had surprise we don't. The Tau'ri will be waiting for us."

"There has to be something?" inquired the aid before pointing at the wall of TVs that carried all the major news networks. "What they see now when they turn on their televisions is Caprica City burning, national treasures destroyed and the remains of multiple battlestars. We need to give them a new image one of victory over the Tau'ri. We need to show them Tau'ri ships destroyed, we need to show them our flag flapping over Kobol."

"And how would it play out if all the men and women you send on a mission without the right perpetration don't come back at all?" inquired Admiral Nagata "I know we need victories to boost our image but right now the need for revenge can last the time we need to get ready."

"Unless the press leaks the images that the Tau'ri put up in the Temple of Apollo." countered the political aid. "We were lucky that the networks didn't switch to those images live but thankfully we were able to get them before they were broadcasted. What we do not need is people saying that the Tau'ri where right to respond for the attack. We need to keep pushing on the fact that their Valhalla is Kobol and there is no proof that they are not lying about the nuclear strike."

"That is a very dangerous game, if the public should learn the truth then it could lead to a lot of trouble," pointed out Admiral Nagata

"And how will that happen, let's say the Tau'ri hack into our computers and broadcast the images they already attempted to show. We can claim they are false and most of the people will believe us." Said the aid "What we need to do is counter the images of our destroyed cities, we need to strike back."

"Admiral, you said that the first recommendation you had took 20 days to prepare." inquired Adar "What are the ones you don't recommend?"

"Sir, one of our experts offered up the idea of attaching missiles to our recon drones and having them carry out unmanned attacks." explained Nagata "This wouldn't take long but the effects would be small unless we load them with nukes and nuking Kobol wouldn't be in our best interest."

"That is an understatement." confirmed Adar as he placed his hand under his chin. "And the Tau'ri have just sent a message saying that they will respond in kind if we use Nuclear, Bio or Chemical weapons on their civilians. So, a nuke of our own would be resounded with a Tau'ri nuke and our own bio attack would mean the Tau'ri carry out their own bio attack. That is something we cannot do."

"I agree." said Admiral Nagata "Most of all nukes, Biological and Chemical warfare we can prepare for with masks and others defensive measures but we have nothing to stop a nuke."

"Maybe a middle ground, tell me Admiral can you program the missiles to not target the planet but only one space born targets?" asked Adar

"Yes, sir." confirmed Nagata as her eyes widened, she had not considered that. "You want to use nukes but only in space, we didn't spot any civilian traffic over Kobol and the Tau'ri themselves use nukes on warships so we wouldn't be crossing that line. Also the Tau'ri themselves have said they plan to go after all spaceships if we do not give up. We will do the same to them."

"Showing Tau'ri ships destroyed would be a good image to show the people." Confirmed the political aid "A wise middle of the road approached but if I may offer a piece of advise."

"What is that?" asked Adar

"I am assuming that the admiral will launch this operation from a ship correct?" asked the political advisor

"Actually if we do this the base at Nysa would be best, it may take slightly longer for the drones to reach Kobol but it will allow for faster deployment," explained Nagata

"Not that big of importance, but it actually helps." explained the advisor "Maybe we should send some of our stock piles of Biological weapons and Hades Fires."

"But the Tau'ri said." started Nagata

"They never said anything about Hades fire so they must not consider that a WMD and we will not send the biological weapons until we can make enough new gas masks to protect the civilian population against a counter attack by Tau'ri gas." advised the advisor. "The gas and Hades Fire can sit at Nysa until such time that you decide to release it."

"No." snapped Adar "I will not send gas, gas masks don't defend against everything but Admiral send enough Hades fires to outfit five drones. I will have to think some more if I want to send Hades fire to Kobol."

"It shall be done." said Admiral Nagata as she left the room.

"Mr. President, while I may not agree with this move totally you did find a good middle ground which leaves you options." Confirmed the Advisor "Personally I don't think the Tau'ri have a stomach for this fight."

"How could you think that?" asked Adar

"Because if they wanted they could have nuked Caprica City instead of doing missiles strikes." explained the advisor "They don't have the stomach for slaughter, if I was a betting man they will bluster and fight for a little bit and then come to the table they way we want them to. Yes we will have to give in one some things likely all claims to their worlds but we will demand Kobol and in the end we will become friends. As long as we remain a strong united people we can stand repulse and repay anything the Tau'ri throw at us."

"I hope you are right." admitted Adar as he placed his hand under his chin. "But I fear that you may be wrong."

**The sun had not risen yet over the ancient city of Atlantis but the rays from the sun filled the horizon with a glow bathing the city in shadows.** Apart from only a couple of minutes of sleep General Shepard had not gotten any sleep. He had spent a couple of hours listening to the Cylon model six explain the differences between the 12 colonies to Todd before they all flew back together to the city. Now the General was standing in the armory while Todd who was now dressed in the common black leather looking armor that was common to every Wraith.

Todd picked up a 1911 pistol, he judged the gun before shaking his head, he moved around the armory like a disappointed General would, shaking his head at every little thing he found wrong.

"Don't you have any Wraith weapons?" inquired Todd to the master of the Armory. Quickly he opened up a different door to show another room full mostly of Wraith weapons, alongside a good amount of Genii, other Pegasus native human weapons and even a few Jaffa staff weapons. Todd moved down the line of wraith stun weapons both the pistol form and the larger rifle version. Unlike most races almost all the Wraith hand held weapons where designed to stun that way they could feed later. Todd moved down the line until he came to a stop at the far end of the line of weapons. Sitting in a locked side cabinet was different weapons they had found on different crashed Wraith ships.

"Open that." ordered Todd as he pointed toward the vase. The Master of the Armory looked at the General for consent before he opened the cabinet. Todd pushed the man aside as he reached for a strange black pistol with silver highlights around the edges. He also grabbed a rifle which looked slimier to a wraith stun rifle only it was thinner, lacked the long needle on the back and the blue glowing energy center was covered. "Do you know what you have here, Sheppard?"

"No, what do we have?" asked Shepard as Todd also pulled out a heavily armored jacket which had been found along with the weapons. After that he began to pull out multiple other smaller weapons, most of it looked similar to every other piece of Wraith weaponry John had ever seen, only there was enough differences to make him know they were different in some way.

"You have the equipment of a Night Feeder." explained Todd as Shepard raised an eyebrow which caused him to growl a bit in announce. "Maybe I should write that book after all, I heard someone from some book company of yours Random House heard about me and wants me to write a book about the history of the Wraith. It will save so much time if I didn't have to explain everything to everyone."

"Well if you want to do that, after this is done then go right ahead." stated Shepard "Now what is a Night Feeder?"

"Right after the Ancients left this galaxy the Wraiths didn't have an enemy to fight and they turned on each other," explained Todd "In time Queens began to try to assassinate each other and enforce order among their followers. The Night feeders did both, there were stories of Wraiths disappearing after they were taken by the Night Feeders never to be seen again."

"Sound like the Wraith version of Gestapo or maybe the SS." noted the German Master of the Armory.

"I do not know what these Gestapo or this SS are but the Night Feeders where the best equipped, trained. They had weapons which could kill not just stun and their armor was able to stop stunned blasts," explained Todd as he looked at the weapons. "The orders where disbanded once the Queens decided not to kill each other and instead split the galaxy up among themselves."

"Which answers why we have never came across them in the past." noted Shepard "They are your version of the special forces, the best of the best."

"Correct, but someone must have brought them back. These weapons are new not ancient." explained Todd as he looked at the weapons. "I'll take them with me to these Colonies."

"I still don't like this." admitted Shepard "Have you picked where you are going?"

"Yes, there is a large military training area on a world called Sagittarion. The training center covers hundreds of square miles of thick woods and boarders a world nature park." explained Todd as he checked his weapons. "Since it is a military training center, it should be full of targets and not many of them will be the civilians your leaders are always worried about."

"Well I guess that makes it less bad." admitted Sheppard. "At least your target will be soldiers not civilians."

"If you want the truth Sheppard the main reason I picked that location is because of a local legend of a white haired monster which lives in the forest and comes out at night to eat those who sinned against the local Gods. Fear is so much easier to build if you have a strong base to work from." explained Todd as Sheppard shook his head. "When do I leave?"

"The Enterprise and the first part of the fleet should arrive in about two hours and once you and the colonials are onboard your head to Colonial space." explained Shepard "It is a long journey to the Colonies, you did feed before you left your home."

"Yes, I will be ready." stated Todd as Sheppard nodded his head before leaving the Wraith to get everything ready for a mission which Sheppard didn't approve of.

**It was just before five thirdly in the morning on Valhalla when Colonel Jack O'Neill walked into the largest meeting room in the Military Command Center.** He had expected to see whole teams of Special Forces ready to hear about what their mission would be. Instead of teams, he saw that the room was full with not teams but only team leaders like himself. He saw Special Forces from almost every nation in the Tau'ri and from different branches. He saw American Delta Force along with Russian Spetsnazs, Chinese Commando's and Gurkhas from India. There were South Korean recon team members and British SAS snipers; there was even the cyber warfare group from Japan. Overall, there was over a hundred people all of them leaders of teams from some of the most elite military forces on Earth.

"I almost feel sorry for the Colonials." said Jack outload to himself, for he knew that for each person in this room had at least a platoon of between 15 and 30 of some the most highly trained professional soldiers behind them.

"If you feel bad for them now, you should know that some of the commanders have a sort of bet going." said a United States Ranger Lieutenant who was standing by the door.

"The bet is who will make the colonials fear them more. Losers have to buy the winners beers or whatever other type of drink they want." added a US Navy Seal as his French counterpart nodded her head.

"Now I really feel sorry for them," confirmed Jack, there was few things to get a special forces member rivaled up. One of the biggest if not the biggest was national pride and pride in one's unit, each of the squads in the bet would do almost anything to show up the other squads. A blood bath was coming to the Twelve Colonies of Kobol and they did not know it.

Moments after he found his seat a woman dressed in a standard Tau'ri field camouflage walked into the room and moved toward the podium at the front of the room. At first, Jack was confused, he had expected to see General Raj-Sing then he saw the patch on the woman's arm. There right below the blue and white Star of David flag of Israel was the seal of the Israeli Covert Operation group of Mossad.

"Good morning Gentlemen and ladies. I am Specialist Cohan of Mossad and I am have been assigned this operation by the governments of the Tau'ri." said the woman as she looked around the room with eyes, which seamed to take in everything at once. "Now I am sure I don't have to explain to you that we are at war and our target is the 12 colonies of Kobol. Now once this meeting is over I or others under my direct command will give you your team's areas of operation. This is basically an overview of our general plan."

She paused for a moment as she took a deep breath.

"I am going to be honest with you, at the moment we could lose this world within days." stated Specialist Cohan "I know some of you may ask how is that possible, we hold the edge on the colonials when it comes to technology. We hold such an edge that it is almost laughable but they hold the edge over us when it comes to numbers of ships that it is laughable. Yes one on one our ships win with ease, but we don't match them one on one. Our best estimate is that have around 4,500 warships to our 67 ships, that is about 67 ships for every one of ours. That is counting our entire fleet if you take out the Hadrian class transports and the Archimedes class science ships our total warship count drops to 55 and of that 35 of them are currently on the Pegasus front so we have 20 ships to protect both Earth and Valhalla. Valhalla has 12 of those 20 ships. That means if the colonials charged us with their ships we would be outnumbered 375 to 1. That is the math people and we are on the short end."

"Damn." cursed Jack under his breath.

"Now a lot of those ships are older and some of them are not even capable of Faster than Light travel but enough are to give us worry. Distance is also a factor it would take them days to reach us while we can hit them in hours." explained Cohan. "Our goals at the moment is to make the Colonials focus on everything beside a direct attack on Valhalla. To help with this the Cylons will be deploying their fleets near the border they share with the colonials. This should give them something to think about and keep part of their fleets focus on the Cylons. Your mission is to give them something to feel. Your missions will be to make the colonials spread out their resources, make them guard everything in fear that you will strike there. Every man they have on guard duty is one less they have getting their ships ready for an attack on Valhalla. You are to spread chaos and fear in the sectors of the planet your assigned."

"Now the plan is for the first wave to begin insurrections within 18 hours with attacks to start as soon as the colonials refuse our demands, so we have to get moving," explained Cohan. "Now we should have recon images of targets and base camps coming in within the hour so until then I have the files on the areas you will operating in which I will be handing out shortly. In there you will find a general outline of the missions we want you to carry out, once we get more data we will have more detailed target lists for you all."

"Other than the first strike which will take place across all the worlds at once you will have free reign to carry out operations as you please within the rules of engagement." explained Cohan "You will find times for personal mission briefing already in your inboxes. Dismissed."

**General Samantha Carter was dressed in a full combat space suit, even though the air outside was breathable and sunlight danced off the black metal frame of the power suit**. She looked down at the computer pad attached to the inside of her right left arm. She did a couple quick taps and pulled up the radiation reading, it was high but still within the safety limits for the suit.

"What happened here?" asked a marine behind her as his flashlight pierced the darkness of what looked to be the remains of an massive industrial building. While they had delayed, the mission to return the Cylons to their planet to carry out this mission in daylight the building was still shrouded in darkness. Only a few rays of sunlight pierced through the darkness from holes in the roof.

"Don't know but this is the strongest source of radiation on the planet and if the people who lived here where messing with an ancient technology we will find information here." explained General Carter as she pulled up the map of the planet. From a higher level, it appeared as if the planet was covered in mostly even amount of faded rotation however a more detailed scanned showed the truth. There where bands of much stronger radiation which ran in straight lines across the planet like a spider web and it all led back to this single point.

"General, I have found something." yelled a marine up head of the general as the General and the other marines moved forward. What they found was two marines standing by the remains of a giant poster, which was hanging on the wall. General Carter looked up at the poster, it was faded but it clearly a political poster of some kind, it showed the world with multiple beams of light coming out from a single point. Above the world it said "New Clean Power for the Future", that was when General Carter noticed that an object which looked like an artiest version of a ZPM was at the heart of the glowing center.

"My God, it wasn't a weapon or even a war which destroyed this world." noted Carter "It was a damn accident."

"Ma'am?" asked the marine

"The fools must have tried to generate the power for an entire world from a single ZPM and the strain was too much and it exploded." said Carter as she ran through what likely happened in her head. "The strands of radiation which run around the planet that was the path of the power cables."

"Wouldn't that have destroyed the planet if not the solar system?" inquired a marine

"Depends on how much power was left in the ZPM, also it likely helped that the explosive force was spread out across the entire planet." explained Carter to the young marine. "All the power lines exploded with a force possibly the equal of one of the Mark IX. It would have the same effect as a nuclear war which could explain why the first humanoid Cylons believed that had happened."

"Well that explains the source of the ancient radiation but where did they get the ZPM?" asked the marine "They aren't that common."

"Likely the same place where the Colonials got theirs. If only the Asgard records explained where this Zues got them from." countered Carter as she looked down at the computer pad, the radiation was begin to spike which likely meant they were nearing where the ZPM had gone off. It was still in the safe zone but just within the limits. "Let's pull back and send a science ship here to study what they did here. So we don't make the same mistakes."

A science ship would not be much useful on a war front and getting one of them to study this world would be easy to pull off. Within moments the team was beamed off the planet and ten minutes after that the Daedalus class warship was heading back toward the Cylon home system to drop off the humanoid Cylons before joining the fight against the colonials.

**The news of the attack on their capital world had reached the Medusa class cruiser Ceto as it followed a standard patrol near the Cylon boarder.** The crew was rotating at condition 2 meaning that while they where not in combat they could be ready for a fight within moments. The small group of 24 Vipers where on standby for combat launch and the guns where in a ready state. Their commander had ordered this even as they all knew that they were on the far side of colonial space from where the border with the Tau'ri was. While they where not worried about an actual attack they had to be ready.

"Any word from command about the battlestars which was destroyed?" asked the young colonel to the Commander as she stood across from him in the CIC.

"Not yet, don't worry you will be one of the first to know." confirmed the Commander "What ship was your wife on again?"

"She was on the…" started the Female colonel only to have alarms fill the air.

"Dradus Contacts!" yelled an officer "We have three contacts."

"Tau'ri?" asked the commander

"No, the computer matches two of the three ships." said the officer before shaking a bit. "Cylon Basestars."

"Cylons." Said the commander not wanting to believe they were now going to have to deal with a war with the Cylons.

"Where are they?" asked the Colonel

"They are on their side of the red line, about the same distance we are from the red line," explained the officer

"Sir, I am getting a message from the Cylons," explained the wireless operator.

"A message from the Cylons," said the Colonel not wanting to believe it.

"Put it on." ordered the Commander, they waited a moment then a robotic voice came over the speakers.

"Attention Colonial Vessel due to your war with the people of the Tau'ri we will be moving our fleet to the border to protect our space from any aggressive actions." Said the robot voice as the dradus screen showed that the three cylon vessels had been joined by two more.

"By the Lords of Kobol, Cylons are amassing at the red line." Exclaimed the Colonel

"Sir, one of our patrol vipers has a visual." Said the wireless "Of the five ships, three of them appear to be the old Cylon war style but two of them are a kind he has never seen before."

"Send a message to command, we need reinforcements out here." Said the Commander of a lone cruiser as the Dradus screen showed that the Cylons where now launching raiders. All the Cylon ships were still on their side of the red line but instead of going on patrol the Raiders moved to a single point and waited, their weapons aimed at Colonial space.

**Far away from the Cylon fleet Major Jaeger and his armored unit moved down the road toward a small lakeside town. **Luckily for the road it had been reinforced so the weight of the armored vehicles didn't break the road down.

"Well this has got to be one of the most stupid jobs to give an armored unit." reported the gunner over the Leopard's personal network. "They are going to use heavy armor to pull logs of roads? That has got to be among the most stupid jobs they could give us."

"I wouldn't call whole trees falling down logs," said Jaeger as he stood out of the top of his tank so that he could see the whole area around him. To his right across a small grassy field he could see a patch of trees, judging from what he could see the trunks of the trees where wide enough so that a fully-grown man could not wrap his hands around it. "Also the heavy equipment is spread thin, besides it is either this or deal with refugees."

"I wouldn't want to deal with that," admitted the gunner as suddenly the command line light up. "Sir, we have something coming over the radio."

"Alright," said Jaeger as he dropped down toward where the small computer was located.

Lying on his stomach in the same field that Jager had just been looking at rested five Colonial Marines, they had been on the hiding since their Raptor had crashed in the woods behind them. The crew of the Raptor was trying their best to repair the bird but the had no food or water.

Normally that would not be an issue they had a source of water only a few hundred yards away. They had crossed the highways avoiding Tau'ri vehicles multiple times to get water but before they had only to deal with what looked to be police vehicles, the heavy monsters moving down the road now were not police.

"As long as we stay low they will pass us by." Said the head of the squad as the tanks and armored vehicles which had been moving down the road came to a stop. "Frak, why are they stopping?"

His answer came when the tanks moved off the road and began to move toward them.

"Alright everyone Drones have spotted a colonial Raptor in that woods and we have 10 colonials likely armed, so weapons are free but try to take them alive," said Jager over the command line to all his tanks, behind him infantry got out of their Cougar APC and moved up behind the Tanks.

"Frak." cursed one of the Colonial Marines as he looked at his rifle, they had abounded their battlestar with only their normal guard duty weapons, rifles and pistols only. They had nothing that could go up against a single tank yet alone seven of them plus an additional tanks and APCs still on the highway.

"Sir, what do we do?" asked another marine to the most senior ranking man in their squad.

"Well boys let's take as many of them with us." Said the head marine as he prepared to pull the pin of the only grenade they had. He was about to pull the pin and dive under the tank when the tank turret turned toward him and the barking sound of the machine gun filled the air. The bullets kicked up the dirt right in front of the group of Colonials.

"How the frak did they see us!" yelled a marine as he jumped up from the tall grass and fired from the hip only to get torn to pieces by the built in machine gun of a second tank.

"That was a warning shot, we know where the four of you are." said a voice from a speaker from the first tank. "So do you want to die today?"

The marines shared a look as they decided what to do without saying a word, as one they dropped their rifles and stood up with their hands in the air.

**Unaware that another group of Colonial forces had been captured on Valhalla, General O'Neill and other top generals from other nations looked over the outline of the first phase of the war against the Colonials. **They had just finished the final selection for targets for the Special Forces to hit and moved on to the next phase of their planning.

"Now we need to get our Eagles into the fight," said Jack as he looked at the map of Colonial Space. "Our best option is to take over this minor colonial base at Nysa."

"Would setting up a radar station there close the gap in our sensor net?" inquired another General

"Not totally but it would help greatly and even more importantly it would allow us to see into five of the major shipping lanes." explained General O'Neill "We would free up Owls for other missions."

"Right now General we have a few options for taking this base, however we need to due more recon and the forces I would recommend to take the base would be better off if they had some more space combat training," admitted another General as O'Neill nodded his head.

"Alright but keep a close eye on that base, it could be used as a forward operation base by the Colonials just as easily as we can use it." Ordered General O'Neill "If we have to we will have to take it before we are totally ready, easier to do that then to try to take it after they have dug in."

"True." Confirmed another General

**The day had been full of activity on Valhalla and it was about to get even more interesting, standing on the far edge of the largest military bases on the planet where large groups of special forces from every member nation of the Tau'ri. **They had separated themselves into groups based on what colonial planet they were going to and then separated the large groups into the units. Sitting on the runway was almost every recon Owls, called Snow Owls. It was their job to transport these men and women to their basecamps using their cloaking technology to get pass the Colonial defenses. Once there it would be up to the Special Forces to carry out their mission.

"Alright lets load up!" yelled a voice as they all moved toward their owls; it did not take long before the Owls engines begin to fire up.

Standing on the opposite side of the runway was Colonel O'Neill he watched as the Owls began to lift off the ground. His squad was in the second wave and would be leaving in about seven hours after these Owls returned. Like everyone else, he waved and cheered as the Owls and the men and women in them left to bring the war to the Colonials.

"For Valhalla!" yell came from many and Jack looked around at the faces, from the outside he did not stand out. However of everyone here he had the most experience, he knew how bloody this was going to be. He wondered if the Colonials knew what sort of hell was coming their way, if they did not they would learn fast.

**Well I now have a lot of special forces heading into Colonial Space, try to imagine all the trouble they can unleash upon the Colonies of Kobol. At the same time, the Colonials are considering launching more attacks on Valhalla. Now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	37. Chapter 37

**Chapter 37 Wolf Pack Part 1**

The day was picture perfect as a convoy of seven vehicles moved down country road; the convoy was made out of four armed Humvees, two flatbed semi-trucks and a much larger semi pulling a silver trailer. As the Humvees moved down the road they passed by multiple farms, the corn was either being harvested or had already been.

"Shouldn't much longer." said the driver of the first Humvee as they passed by a tractor supply center, the American flag in front of it was as half-staff and the Ohio flag was even lower. By every house they passed, they saw American flags out and even a few had the Tau'ri flag beside the American one.

"The map says it should be about a mile ahead and to the right," said the leader of the mission as he sat in the front seat. There were only three people in the Humvee, the other one was standing behind him with his head out and his hands on the heavy fifty-caliber machine gun.

Normally American Army Humvees did not travel down roads in their own nation armed and ready for a fight but the cargo they had required it. They even had two armed predator drones flying over them to make sure it did not fall into the wrong hands. To most of the soldiers it seemed like overkill but they soon passed by the reason why the convoy had so much protection.

The house looked normal for the area; the oddest thing about it was the large number of firewood stacked up in the side yard. If it was not for the signs planted everywhere in the yard it would not have been worth a second look. There were multiple signs calling the government evil and proclaiming the Tau'ri alliance to be the beginning of the new world order. There was even one saying the President was the anti-Christ and that the Tau'ri was the work of the devil.

"Well not everyone can be happy with changes," noted the gunner as he waved to the old man who stood in front of the house. Instead of getting a wave back the man gave him the finger.

"Only half a mile now." said the Leader as he tapped the screen on his small computer. "Yes, here it is past the giant chicken."

"Giant Chicken?" asked the driver as they turned a small bend in the road only to see a tall ten foot tall painted wooden chicken standing in front of a farm. "Well that is something you don't normally see in New York City."

The convoy made the turn as they headed toward the tallest point in the entire area, the dump. The gates where opened for them as they moved up and toward a prepared position on the front side of the tall mountain of trash which had been built up over decades. Parts of the dump appeared to be a normal hill with grass growing over it but just under the surface was trash. The three semi trucks backed up to preplaced stations with the two flat beds on either side of the larger trailer. It did not take long to set everything up, the larger trailer opened up on the sides and back to show a strange looking device with three different nozzles pointing in either direction. A nequadah generator, which sat in the back, was turned on and everything was in ready.

"Let's get this show going!" yelled the commander as the head technician hit some keys on his command computer tablet. Instantly the nozzle pointed away from the two flat beds began to glow before rays of silver light shot out and hit the nearest mound of trash. Everyone watched as before their very eyes it began to break apart into nothingness. At the same moment the two nozzles which had pointed toward the flat beds began to glow. These two sent out their own light only this time objects began to form on the flat beds. It took only moments but soon the mound of trash had been transformed into two flat 10 ft. by 10 ft. by 2-inch thick steel plates.

"Amazing so this thing can actually turn trash into metal?" asked one of the soldiers assigned to protect it.

"In truth it can turn it into almost anything see this can change the arrangements of the atoms by adding protons, electrons and neutrons which make up the trash and turn them into almost anything." Explained the engineer who in truth didn't understand how it worked fully himself. "Then it projects them out and makes the item, as long it has access to raw matter it can make almost anything. These plates and others we make will likely head up to Lima to the tank plant and be turned into a new Leopard Tank or some other factory, I heard that multiple factories are being switched to war material."

"Why not just use it to make the tank right here?" asked the solider "Hell we can make a whole ship couldn't we?"

"No, some elements such as Naquadah and titanium can't be replicated in this method, something to do with the make up of the metal and both of them are key to our space crafts. Also the electronic parts aren't easily replicated either which limits it. The more simple the item, the easier it is to make." explained the technician, as more light shot out engulfing another mound of trash. "We will be using it to make parts which will be assembled together but right now the order is for metal plates."

"I see and how long will this take?" asked a solider

"To do this whole dump will take a few days but we will get tons of steel out of it." explained the technician. "That is raw war materials from trash, I call that a wonder all on its own."

"I guess." said the guard as he remembered seeing the starships over the cities of the world. "Can someone turn on the radio?"

It took only a few moments before someone turned on the radio, the news was the first thing they came across.

"There are record lines outside of recruitment centers across Eastern Asia and Australia. The Russian government is planning to hold a mass swearing in of new soldiers in Red Square at one local time." reported the woman over the radio. "We have reports of records numbers signing up for the Armed forces here in the states, some schools have actually closed to allow enlistments to happen at the schools because of lack of room at the normal station."

"I would imagine the fly boys in the air force are going to get a lot of recruits." laughed one of the guards.

"I would actually say the army, because likely most of this fight will happen in space and that will be the air force, so we will get all the people who want to go to war but don't actually want to fight." countered the first guard.

"And just look we will end up invading these stupid colonials for some reason." Said another guard as the machine kept working. Within half an hour the first two trucks where full of metal plates and pulling out just as two more arrived to take their place. All over the United States and around the world the same thing was happening as they began to gather resources for the fight. Those resources would be heading to countless factories all being retooled to make weapons and supplies needed for the fight.

**Unknown to the soldiers in Ohio at that moment General O'Neill was actually looking over the reports about the amount of war material that the Tau'ri would likely get from cleaning up the trash dumps across the world. **That was only one thing he now had to deal with, the plan for integration of all the different Earth militaries into a single fighting force originally had a 10 year scheduled. During that time they would not only get everyone up to speed on the same equipment harder still getting all the different departments working together. Now they had to do all that, while fighting a war, which would cause millions of more people to sign up to fight. With all that in his mind he looked at the wall clock. He had had a second clock insulted which was set to Celin time on Valhalla.

"Shouldn't be much longer." said a new voice as Jack looked up to see his old friend Dr. Daniel Jackson standing in the doorway.

"Space monkey how are you doing?" inquired Jack as he leaned back in his chair.

"Well I just got an email to help set up a show in the Smithsonian and other museum around the world about the Stargate and the role of Aliens in the Ancient past." explained Daniel as he sat down across from his friend. "I turned them down, I would be more helpful if I try to figure out Colonial History, maybe if I find some hard evidence we can convince them that they really came from Earth after they escaped the destruction of Valhalla or Kobol by the Asgard."

"I don't think anything will convince them of that, but it can't hurt what do you need?" asked Jack

"I need clearance to allow me to go to Valhalla, the commander of Valhalla said that the gate is closed to all none military personal." Explained Daniel as Jack nodded his head that was an easy thing to do. In fact, the commander should have just allowed Daniel to come; he was a member of SG1 and was no risk. "Have you looked over the military history of the Colonials?"

"Not really I have been kind of busy." explained Jack

"Well let's just say they are in for a nasty surprise with those Special Forces you are sending." stated Daniel "They have no real experience with what we would call Guerrilla Warfare, throughout their history in every war they have had two or more sides go at each other with standing armies."

"But they have terrorist groups and counter terror groups." Countered Jack

"They do but unlike most terror groups we have dealt with who strike fear to gain a political goal, colonial terror groups in general are attempting to gain land and grow an actual army from that land." explained Daniel as Jack rubbed his chin at the idea. "They are pretty much in the same mindset that the American Army was in before Vietnam, they are used to two sides standing and fighting each other. They did do hit and run attacks but always to gain the edge for a larger traditional offensive somewhere else."

"If that is true then they are in for an even worse surprise then I thought," admitted Jack as he also wondered why no one else had actually read the thousands of documents on Colonial Military History that they downloaded from the Colonial version of the internet. "So the Colonials are in basically a post WWII style of combat."

"In fact some of the methods they used in the Cylon war was more in line with WW1 than anything else." Explained Daniel "Some of the ideas of war we take for normal now like Blitzkrieg and striking an enemy deep behind their lines would be alien to them."

"Why?" asked Jack

"Look at their enemy, the cylons are basically walking tanks." Explained Daniel "So the only way they could take ground and keep it was to have ground troops move up with tanks on foot because vehicles would be huge targets."

"And a man can't walk as fast as a tank can roll." stated Jack as he leaned back in his chair. "Daniel can you write a report, I will hand it to the Army and to the World leaders."

"No problem." said Daniel as he looked up at the clock. "When does it start."

"Should already have started," confirmed Jack

**At almost that exact moment a flight of Condor Bombers who had been waiting for the go ahead at Valhalla exited hyperspace just outside of Dradis range of one of the major colonial shipping lanes. **Just like the multiple ship lanes on Earth's oceans there were certain paths which was used more often than others. This was the same only replace ocean going cargo ships with space ships.

"Damn look at all those ships." Said Andrea as her Condor moved into its standby position. Ahead of them a cloaked Owl was scouting out the what ships where there and which ones would be the first to be hit. On the radar screen Andrea could see 70 targets of all different sizes, maybe because it was space and if an accident happened there was no ocean to jump into in hopes of rescue but the colonials where traveling in convoys. To make it even stranger there was no sign of any colonial armed forces, no battlestars, no small patrol ship or even a single raptor or viper escort.

"They must think we are at peace or something." reported the copilot as the Condor extended it's wings to bring the missile pods into firing position.

"Or that we would strike at the route closer to Valhalla first." Said Andrea as she looked out at the cockpit window at the line of four bombers which had come to this part of the line. She knew that in other parts of the shipping lane other condor bombers would be doing the same thing she was doing. Sitting and waiting for an Owl to pick their first targets.

"Targeting computer is up," said the copilot as the Owl in front sent back the targets for her Condor Elsa's Revenge. The Owl had picked out 12 ships for her Condor to destroy, if the other condors had similar numbers of targets when they finished there would be 48 less ships in the convoy, the remaining 22 would be allowed to pass. They would hopeful save anyone who managed to survive the attack and they would spread word about the attack. Later attacks called for the number of ships to be allowed to escape to drop.

"Let's fire 30 missiles, some of those ships will require more than two to take down fully," ordered Andrea as the copilot/weapon operator nodded her head. It took only a few minutes for her to program the missiles so that they would hit the target they were supposed to hit. With that done she confirmed her readiness to the other Condors and as one they moved out against the helpless convoy, a pack of wolves heading into a defenseless herd of sheep.

The Colonials did not even see the Condors until after the missiles had fired and since FTLs cost a lot to put into ships and where seen as mostly pointless aside from Military ships few civilian ships had them. Almost all of these ships where long haul cargo ships which carried cargo from one star system to another. They had no FTL, they had no weapons and they could not outrun the incoming fire. All but one of the 48 ships targeted by the Condors took direct impacts from multiple missiles, the single ship not to had a someone on board who was smart enough to ejected the cargo containers attached to the side of the ship. The metal cargo containers took the blows not the ship itself. Still it was a good attack run for the Condors who turned and headed back for home, leaving the colonials to their fate.

**Red and blue flashing lights began to flash above the police vehicle as the Delphi City police car rolled up toward a two vans and a small portable lift which sat under an overpass.** A group of workmen where busy putting in a square metal box to the top of the overpass. They paid no mind to the police car or the other hundreds of cars which moved passed them. Only when the siren whaled did they pay attention, the crew stopped and watched as two officers in Police blue.

"What are you doing?" asked one of the officers an older heavier set man who seemed to be the senior of the two.

"Work order from the defense department." explained the head of the crew as he handed over a clipboard with the order. "We are installing bases and wiring for cameras, they are worried that someone might try to bomb it."

"How would a camera protect from a bomb?" asked the younger officer only to get a shrug.

"I just do what I am told." explained the head of the crew "We don't even have the cameras yet, we are putting in the bases and wiring and moving on. They are going to have someone else do the cameras."

"And pay them two times as much as they would pay us to do the same job." complained the woman on the lift.

"Very true, well everything seems in order." laughed the head officer as he landed back the clipboard and headed back to the cruiser. Neither of the officers knew that they were seconds away from death and that all of the members of the work crew where actually armed.

"Alright that was close." Said the head of the crew in their native Danish as the members of the Jaegerkorpset or Hunter Corps was not placing bases for camera but where in fact placing shaped high explosive charges on the highway overpasses. While destroy them would not cripple the colonial forces it would cause a major headache for bring supplies into 3rd largest city on Caprica. It would also force the Colonials to spend resources protected other highway overpasses and with 12 worlds worth of roads that was a lot of overpasses to protect along with bridges and railroad lines.

"Done." Said the demolish expert as she made sure the timer was set right. Once that was done she was lowered to the ground and the crew picked up the bright yellow cones which the colonials used instead of orange and they moved down the quarter of a mile to the next overpass in their stolen vehicles and repeated the process.

While the Danish where doing their work behind a mask other special forces where not trying to hid among the civilian work crew but instead they were hunting.

**There where few overpasses on Aerilon, the planet was mostly flat rolling hills which reminded the group of United States Army Rangers of Great Plains.** Aerilon being the breadbasket of the colonies was basically the middle west on a planet size scale. The fields of something that looked like corn went right up to the simple chain link fence which surrounded the factory. The factory itself wouldn't have looked out of place in the United States, the only thing that may have caused it to stand out was the armed guards which walked around the perimeter of the factory.

"So it is true, the colonials do have a business called Lex Corp." laughed one of the Rangers as he looked at the sign which hung by the main gate. It showed the company logo which had what appeared to be a bobcat of some kind with its claws out stretched.

"From the reports it is their version of a Colt or HK, this place is a major source of military assault rifles." explained the commander of the team as he looked down at the small computer on the inside of his forearm. It showed the location of all his teams, they had the factory surrounded and the night shift had been on for over an hour. "Let's move."

With that order going out the three squads of 8 men moved forward with an additional eight men squad watching the main road, this force was a reserve force in case something happen. The rangers moved forward and with quick bursts from silenced weapons, they brought down the small guard force and moved onto the factory as a whole. One of squads split up as two men moved toward the large above ground propane tanks which served as a backup power source.

"Squad one in position." reported the center Squad as they lined up near the front door.

"Squad two in position." reported the western squad as they moved toward the loading docks where large semi-trucks where lined up to take shipments of weapons to colonial bases around the colonies.

"Squad three in position." said the eastern squad, they were the smaller squad and their task was to take down the management building and the computers which were stored there.

"Three…two…one." said the Captain who was leading the center Squad and the entire mission as a whole. As one the Rangers entered their target, for the center squad they entered the main lobby which served as a break room. The room was empty aside from a cook, which was standing with his back to the door over a small oven. He turned when he heard footsteps, he had just enough time to realize that they were not colonials before a ranger put a stun round into his chest and he fell first onto the groan. With that done they moved through a small door and was instantly greeted by the sound of a factory. Machines where making so much notice that no one noticed the armed men as they entered and fanned out.

All around them machines where busy producing bullets as fast as possible. The sound the machines masked the silenced rounds coming out of the barrels of the rangers as they moved through the war factory clearing the place. Since this was a night shift there were fewer people than it would have been during the day, but there was still over a hundred people in the factory.

On the loading dock, there was no sound of heavy machinery to mask the rangers as they moved in. They were spotted right away and a yell came out, the workers had been briefed by management that the factory could become the target of an air attack but no one had thought that armed men could be storming the factory. It was one sided, the workers had no weapons aside from throwing stuff at the Tau'ri and with lift sign detectors there was no place to hide.

The third group had an even easier time, there was no one in the management building aside from a cleaning crew who didn't even realized that the Rangers were their until one of them had put a pistol to the back of his head and pulled the headphones out.

"We are clear here," reported team one

"Same here." reported team two

"Clear." Reported team three

"No calls on the radio or phones, look like it was a clean take down." reported the fourth team which was watching the main road. "Now get going we have twenty minutes."

The rangers went to work as most moved the stunned workers into the break room, while others began to place small thermite grenades into key machines. Moments after the rangers pulled the pin on the grenades, the thermite began to burn. Within seconds the burning metal destroyed everything within the machines making them useless.

A small group of rangers where busy loading one of the semi-trucks full of one of the main reasons they had come to the factory. This factory while on the small side produced some of the high explosive rounds which were designed to take down cylons, the Tau'ri wanted some to study and there were about to get a truck full. The last thing the rangers did was set charges on the already made rounds and set the timer for fifteen minutes, with that done and the entire factory still stunned they moved out.

Fifteen minutes later, the shipment wing of the factory which was far away from where the stunned workers where went up in a giant fireball turning the night sky to day, followed moments later by the propane tanks and the entire office building. Within seconds two thirds of the factory was a burning wretch and the 1/3rd, which wasn't, had all their machines disabled beyond repair. In all the attack had taken less than 45 minutes.

**Thousands of Lightyears away from the 12 colonies of Kobol Lee Adama sat in small crew quarters on board the Tau'ri aircraft Carrier Yorktown which was heading back toward his home, a home it was now at war with.**

"How could this have happened?" asked Lee as he looked at the other colonials in the small room. The Tau'ri had put them all into two small crew areas which shared a bathroom and was designed to hold 8 people. That meant that they had an extra bed but they all felt trapped, armed guards stood outside the door and they had been warned that if they tried to leave they would be shot. Lee had tried to talk to a ranking officer only to be told to fuck off.

"I don't really know," stated Dr. Jenny Oldstone with a yawn. "Sorry I didn't sleep well."

"I think that can be said about a lot of us," confirmed Doctor Baltar as he looked at the woman he was currently sleeping with.

"According to the news which they have shown they say that we nuked one of their worlds." Said Karl "If that is true then we deserve anything we get from that."

"And we would get our ass handed to us." Said Sharon

"These Tau'ri are monsters, I have looked through their history they have fought and killed each other in numbers that is unbelievable." stated Priestess Adrianna of the Holy order of Athena "They actually killed more people in six years of war during their second world war then we lost in all 12 years of the Cylon War."

"That only makes me worry about what they are willing to do." Added Karl

"They say on their news that their world "Valhalla" could possibly be Kobol and if that is true then they were trespassing on holy ground." defended the Priestess as Dr. Oldstone looked at her as if she was an idiot.

"Sorry but according to your own holy scrolls, we left Kobol over 2,000 years ago." countered the humanoid Cylon hiding among them. "If that isn't long enough to forfeit all claims to a world I do not know what is."

"We can't give up claims to what the Lords of Kobol gave us," countered Priestess Adrianna

"And how does your scrolls deal with what we saw, a whole population of humans in a different galaxy. War between the Tau'ri and aliens how does that square with your scrolls?" inquired Dr. Oldstone only to get a death glare by the Priestess. "I believe in hard evidence and the Tau'ri have it, you have nothing but a couple of old scrolls."

"We will have hard evidence when we win this war because we have the Lords of Kobol on our side." Countered the Priestess

"You are a fraken nutcase." stated the number six.

**Lieutenant James Chontos sat in the back of a truck of some kind rolling down a road on Valhalla, his arms and legs where chained up and bolted to the bed of the truck. **That amount of restraint did not seam enough for the Tau'ri who now had him and multiple other Colonials as Prisoners of War. The guards had passed bags over their heads, the thick black covering made it impossible to see out of but yet it was thin enough to allow them all to breath with ease.

"So where do you think they are taking us?" asked a woman to his right.

"Likely somewhere that they can shoot us in the back of the head without having to dig a hole." answered another woman, only this one was across from him.

"Well if this is Kobol, then at least we will die on holy ground," said a man near the end of the truck with a laugh.

"I would rather live." added James Chontos as the truck slowed down.

"Dialing the gate," announced a distance load speaker.

"Gate?" asked James to himself as the truck started rolling again. After a few moments, he felt something strange, it was hard to explain and it felt as if he had been dipped in a liquid of some kind only to come out seconds later. They rode for what seemed like another hour or so until finally the truck came to a stop. The sound of Tau'ri soldiers moving outside the truck caused him to turn toward the exit. It took only a few moments before the bag was removed from his head and he was unchained.

James got out of the truck to see that he and hundreds of so of his fellow Colonial POW where standing in front of a large open clearing. In the clearing other teams of Colonials, dressed in simple clothing with a bright red ban with the POW in white on it where busy setting up what looked to be pre made steel buildings.

A woman dressed in a Tau'ri uniform and flanked by two much larger man win full combat uniforms appeared in front of the new group.

"Welcome to Colonial Prisoner of War Camp 1." Said the woman "Now we don't have much time and since I am sure none of you want to sleep outside tonight I will make this fast. I am Colonel Chen of the Chinese People Liberation Army and I am the commander of this camp. You will answer to me and the officers and men under my command. I know some of you may be wondering why you don't see any fences or barriers which would allow you to attempt an escape."

James looked around and it was true, aside from a few guards there was no sign of this actually being a prison. No concrete walls, no razor wire or anything else, they could overpower the guards with ease if they wanted to. That is what made him nerves, the Tau'ri must have known that but yet they showed no fear.

"See, we are no longer on Valhalla, we are actually on the other side of the galaxy almost the same distance away from Earth as Valhalla is." explained Colonel Chen "If you were to attempt to escape in a Colonial ship, your grandchildren would have died of old age before you reached Colonial Space."

None of the Colonials understood how that was possible considering they had just been rolling down the road.

"There is also no human life on this world aside from ourselves and so you have no population to hid among." said Colonel Chen "If you want to go out into the woods to die, be our guest. In the mean time you will be doing what we tell you to do."

"You want us to be slaves!" yelled a voice

"Believe me, if we were doing this in the Soviet style you would be sitting somewhere like Siberia and if you didn't work we would shot you, instead we will allow you to work for us and we will pay you for your work." explained Colonel Chen as the POWs looked at each other. "You will not be making war materials if that is what your concern is, instead you will be mostly be cutting down trees and clearing land for future settlement of this world. All the money you make will be able to be used to buy goods such as specialty food, clothing and other items. You will still be able to practice whatever faith you want, however if you break one of our rules…lets just say you will not like what happens."

"Now lets get you all to work building your homes until this war ends." said Colonel Chen

**The sound of a bullet striking metal rung through the air as two colonial Lieutenants stood on a raised platform to the right and above a large metal plat with multiple metal targets on it.**

"Looks like a dead center hit sir." Yelled a man below the two instructor

"Alright do you see the sniper?" asked one of the Lieutenants

"Yes, looks like he fired way to soon." said the head Lieutenants as he got onto the wireless. "Frank move 7 meters forward and up to the small tree."

They waited, as the other colonial sergeant moved toward a small tree, lying in the brush beside the tree was a training colonial sniper.

"Sir, is this the spot?" asked Frank

"Yes." confirmed the Lieutenant as the sniper jumped to his feet and spun his rifle around and hung it over his shoulder.

"You did ok, when it comes to hitting your target but you need to work on your stealth." Said Frank as the sniper tilted his head.

"Sir, I never fired." answered the sniper as Frank's eyes widened as four more shots rung out in quick order. He suddenly found himself covered in blood and brains as the young sniper in training's head exploded in front of his very eyes. He turned stunned toward the other colonials in the field only to see that they too had fallen over with their heads missing. One of the two lieutenant had fallen over the edge of the raised platform to smashed into the ground.

"By the Lords of Kobol." said Frank as four figures rose up from the training meadow. These men where not dressed in colonial sniper core uniforms, they were not carrying any type of colonial weapon he had ever seen before. They were dressed head to what appeared to be camo of some kind, under it he saw Tau'ri style battle armor only these where painted green instead of the black he was used to seeing.

Frank was about to reach for his side arm when he saw that two of the Tau'ri snipers had pistols on him while another was walking up to him.

"I wouldn't try that." Said the man in a strange accent as he pulled his pistol out of the holster and after looking at it for a few moments he put it in a side belt pouch. "Now what is your name?"

"Sargent Frank…Na.." started Frank only to be stopped.

"I don't really care about your last name, now Frank do you want to know why your blood isn't spreading across the ground?" inquired the Tau'ri sniper. "Well that is because we want you to tell everyone you meet what happened here, tell them we are hunting them."

"Yes, sir if I may ask who are you?" asked Frank "I know your Tau'ri but…"

"We are British SAS snipers and make no mistake you will never see us again but you will know that we are here." explained the Tau'ri before he raised a different type of pistol and fired into Frank's chest. It didn't hurt like he thought a normal bullet would instead it felt as if electricity was running through his body as he fell to the ground.

**Unaware of anything going on less than a hundred miles away from the Colonial Sniper school a group of soldiers dressed in full colonial army battle gear ran up a hill.** This group had entered basic camp before the Tau'ri arrived and they would be the first to finish after war had been declared. Most of the men and women had not dreamed that they would actually be fighting against another human, cylons yes but humans no.

"Come on, we only have half a mile to go to the top!" yelled the squad leader as led his squad up the mountain road. Their boots pounding on the ground and their helmets bouncing on top of their heads as they moved. All of them where dressed in the olive green field uniform of the colonial army with their bulletproof vests over it all. They all had packs carrying everything that they would normally carry into combat.

"Sir, shouldn't we have passed any of the others groups coming down the hill?" asked a woman in the front row. "4th and 5th squads took off before us and we haven't passed them."

"They are likely getting a breather at the top of the hill." explained the squad leader as they rounded a corner in the road and saw that the pavement was covered with what looked to be red paint of some kind.

"What the frak?" asked the woman as suddenly the tree line to her right exploded with something that sounded like a faint popping sound. Next thing she knew she felt something hit her in the side just below the hip. Then another something hit her near the top of her shoulder. She looked around only to see her squad mates, the men and women she had been training with falling down with blood pouring from wounds. She tried to move only to have her legs fail her; she fell to the pavement which now slick with warm blood. Her face was to the woods that had opened up on her so she saw who had fired on her squad.

They seemed to have grown from the trees themselves, they wore different colored uniforms then she had ever seen. What stood out was that they wore the same type of power-armored exosuits over their arms and legs that she had seen the Tau'ri wear on TV. They lacked the helmets so she was able to see their faces, they were as human as she was but on their arms where two patches which marked them as her enemies. One was the Tau'ri flag and the other was the flag of the nation of Germany.

The leader spoke in a tongue she didn't understand as they moved among the downed colonials, every so often one of them would fire a silenced weapon into a downed colonial ending their already doomed lives. Others where shooting her squad mates with what looked to be energy bolts coming out of the end of a strange gun. They fired three times and then whatever they hit would disappear into nothingness. She watched some of the Tau'ri move down the hill, likely to another ambush location to hit the next squad coming up the hill on their run. There had been five squads which had gone up before them and their was six more coming up.

A shadow fell over her as she moved her head a bit to see a Tau'ri solider standing over her, his eyes that is what jumped out at her. They were the same color of green as hers, he gave her a sad smile before raising his weapon and pulling the trigger. The last thing she ever saw was the flash coming out of the barrel of a Tau'ri weapon.

"I thought we were going to take a prisoner?" asked another member of the German Kommando Spezialkrafte or KSK as he moved up to the man who had just killed the female colonial solider.

"That wound was too bad, she was going to bleed out in less than two minutes. I gave her a quick end." explained the Commando as he fired three rounds of ZAT rounds into the body, causing it to disappear into nothingness. With that done, they moved down the hill to the next firing position to wait for the next group of Colonials to come up to die.

"I wonder how the other teams are doing?" asked the other German Commando

"I am sure we will find out in time." Said the first Commando as the sound of Colonial military running song reached their hears, they were about to do their bloody work again.

**Lieutenant Kara Thrace felt like ripping the throats of the group of so called veteran pilots who where currently attempting to make landings on the Battlestar Moros.** The Moros was a cylon war era battlestar and did not have a computer-guided landings. That was throwing off the veteran pilots who were used to having computers do almost everything for them. As pilots they all had to do three none computer landings to earn their wings but after that it was once a year if that. They were not used to doing it multiple times over

"You need to watch the landing lights, you overshot the strip." ordered Kara into the wireless set as a pilot went so far into the Battlestar landing strip that they bounced out the other side. "Power back on and spin around for another landing."

"Yes, Lieutenant." answered the pilot who would soon be calling this ship home.

"Fraken idiots." cursed Kara so loudly she didn't hear the door open behind her.

"Lieutenant Kara Thrace." said a voice as Kara turned toward the newcomers only to see a man dressed in Colonial Raptor flight suit. He didn't stand out in anyway, in fact the only thing that made him stand out was that he was slightly shorter then normal.

"What of it?" asked Kara.

"I have orders for you." Said the man as he handed her a piece of paper, she scanned it before looking back at the man.

"You have got to be fraken me, they want me to report to this training school on Tauron now?" asked Kara

"Yes, I have a Raptor waiting," said the man "Someone else is going to take over here."

"Well that is just perfect." snared Kara before turning back on her wireless. "All you idiots land, I have been reassigned so consider yourselves luckily."

"I am ready to leave when you are." Said the pilot

"Give me ten minutes to make sure these pilots land safely and gather my stuff." Said Kara as the pilot nodded his head before walking out. The moment she was alone she crumpled the paper container her order up.

"Damn them, they had to send me back to my old field…the field where Zak died." cursed Kara as she felt like punching the wall.

**High above the Colonial World of Sagittaron the Tau'ri ship Akula sat cloaked and invisible to every known Colonial sensor**. Standing in the Command Center of the Akula was Captain Ramius, in the old Russian hands he held a coffee mug the steam rising from it.

"Sir, the teams have either beamed down or have reached the target area in the jumpers." reported the XO as he stood beside the Captain. "I must admit sir, I would rather be attacking those shipyards at Scorpia."

"So would I." admitted Captain Ramius as the old Russian officer looked at the scans of the bunker the Special Force team was going to be taking down. Flashing near the center of the base was the tracer of the fake ZPM they had switched for the real one in the opening moments of the war. Not shown on the screen but shown on Colonial news was that the other 11 "Lights of Kobol" had been moved as well. The goal of this mission was simple take the bunker and the ZPMs, if possible, they would replace the real ones with fakes but that was not totally required.

The mission was so important that the Tau'ri command had pushed back the attack on the shipyards which were building warships to support the mission. They even had taken ships out of the line of defense of Valhalla and put them in a standby position to support the mission if need be. Sitting less than five minutes out of the system and away from all Colonial patrol routes sat not only two Daedalus class warships but the Battleship Britannia. If the Akula got into trouble, they would come to the aid to finish the mission.

"But if the Colonials figure out what those ZPMs can do then we would be in a lot of trouble," explained Captain Ramius

"This should be an easy mission and the Colonials will have no idea that we were even here," added the XO as he took a drink from his own coffee.

**Well I hope you liked this chapter, next chapter will have more Special Forces attacks and other surprises. Now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	38. Chapter 38

**Chapter 38 Wolf Pack Part 2**

Luitenant Kara Thrace moved toward the waiting raptor in the hanger of the decomished battlestar Moros. The Moros was actually built after the Galactica but she had been in mothball for almost 30 years and it showed. All around her crews most of whom were not even born yet when the ship was mothballed, where busy getting the old warship ready to get into the fight against the Tau'ri.

"I heard that the military is going to take over half of the civilian ship yards over Scorpia to build warships or at least do upgrades." reported a crew man as he was busy scrapping the rust of a pipe.

"You heard right, my brother works at the yards and some of the owners are frakened pissed they have contacts to make civilian ships that they will lose out on." said woman beside him who was preparing the fresh paint, which would go over the pipe.

"Won't they still get paid?" inquired the man

"Yes, but not as much since they took over the old Cylon war shipyards when the military moved to their new yards." explained the woman "Part of the deal was that the military can take over if war is declared and the military fixes the prices."

"Well at least they will still have the other half of the old yard." said the woman "And the military can't touch the newer civilian built shipyards without paying out of their fraken asses."

"This war will not last long. Once the Tau'ri get a good view of the size of our fleet they will beg us for peace." confirmed the man as Kara moved toward the Raptor. As she arrived at the location, she saw the pilot who had spoke to her earlier as well as a copilot.

"Lieutenant Thrace please get into the back." ordered the pilot

"I was going to fly the bird." Explained Kara

"I am afraid not, our orders are to take you there and we will do that." said the copilot as Thrace thought about fighting but then she saw there was a diamond shape mark on both of the pilots uniform. The mark showed where a patch had been removed and she did not put up a fight as she got into the back of the Raptor. She made sure her helmet was on tight and her suit was sealed, within moments the Raptor had left the battlestar and disappeared in a flash of light.

"Alright gentlemen why are two pilots from Hermes Wings taking me to a training base?" inquired Kara as the pilot turned and looked at her. "The patch on your suit, or should I say the patch you took off is where the patch for one of the Hermes Wing's units. So why are you taking me to a training base?"

There were in total twelve elite forces in the Colonial Military, split between the army, navy and marines. The navy being the largest of all the branches had six of the twelve groups, the groups themselves where made out of 12 unites each stationed on one of the major worlds of the colonies. One thing that made them stand out was that unlike the other unites their patches where diamond shaped not square or circled. So that each world had a one of each of the unites if only in small amounts. Hermes Wings was the special navy unit trained to transport the other units most of all the army and marine Special Forces into battle on specially designed and equipped Raptors.

"We are not heading to a training center." answered the copilot "We are heading to an Research and Development Center on Sagittaron. They want you there."

"Why me?" asked Kara

"We just the drivers we have no idea why they want you." explained the pilot "Only that this is likely the easiest job we will have for a while."

**The woods on Virgon was thick and full of tall old oaks which branches covered the ground in shade, there was a lot of undergrowth which caused the entire wood to appear as if it had been untouched by the hand of man. **The only sign that man had touched the woods was a dirt road, which weaved through the woods. Moving down that road was something which clearly didn't belong in the woods, there moving down the road was a colonial T-35 Pallas tank. The tank was painted olive green to help blend in with the woods, but nothing could hide the rumble of its twin engines.

"Damn that sucker is load," noted the French Special forces member hiding in the woods watching the colonial tank and the 20 colonial soldiers who were also dressed in olive green uniform move through the woods.

"Yes, and those colonials are fools." said the second officer as they hid in the woods waiting for the operation to begin. "Why send a tank into woods like this, it is asking for an enemy to kill it. The trees would get in the way of that turret. They don't even have their infantry soldiers spread out to search the woods for enemies."

"From my understanding sir their old enemies, the Cylons where not expects of hiding." explained the commander of the strike force. "Their commanders where painted bright gold and their normal soldiers where decked out in chrome. They kind of stand out in green woods like this. It as if they didn't care about modern warfare."

"Well they look like extras in a WW2 movie with those uniforms. Aside from their bullet proof vests and their rifles, they look like American soldiers in olive green uniforms from the 1940's." said the second officer

"The tank looks like a cross of an American Abrams and a Nazi Tiger tank." said an infantry solider as he studied the massive armored tank moving through the woods. "Only it looks heaver and wider, with a much larger gun."

"Looks like at least a 203mm cannon, normally you only see them in heavy towed artillery, the shells for that thing must be heavy as hell for any loader in there." noted the second officer "And that machine gun on top is closer to a small cannon then anything supposed to take on humans."

"From all reports that makes it is a lot heaver and slower, the top speed is only supposed to be 50 kilometers per hour on the road, cross country it goes down to below 40 kilometers an hour." said the commander as the men around him all looked at him as if he was crazy. At 50 kilometer per hour or just under 32 miles an hour that was just a mile or two faster than an American WW2 Sherman tank and was nothing compared to the 125 kilometer an hour or 77 mile an hour of a Tau'ri Leopard III tank on the open road.

"I see only a single tank, are we sure they don't have any other tanks in support?" asked the second in command

"No, they don't admass their armor; they spread them out and move them up in support of the foot soldiers." explained the commander. "If you look closer you can see that the infantry have six men armed with what appears to be RPGs or missile launchers of some kind. They are training to go up against Cylon Centurions not humans in the woods."

"Well that always seems to be the case, commanders fighting the last war not realize that everything has changed." Said the second officer

"Well they will learn soon enough," said the French Leader as the tank kept moving through the woods.

**Standing in the copula of her Pallas tank stood a Colonial Army Lieutenant, she took a deep breath as she enjoyed the air around her.** True behind her the air stank of her engine smoke but in front of her was clean air. She considered herself luckily compared to the men and women in the infantry who had to walk wherever they went. She had 13 inches of steel and other composites armor around her. She had to laugh a bit, they had chosen 13 because it was a lucky number, the total number of colonies of man was 13. One inch of armor per colony and now they were going to war against one of those colonies.

"We should be reaching the mock bunker in ten minutes or so." said the Lieutenant over the wireless to her crew located throughout the tank. Her driver could see out of the front of the tank but her gunner could not, she was stuck without a view. "Make sure we have a training round ready to go."

"Will do." said the gunner as she pushed a button and the autoloader began to move. Within moments there was a training round in the barrel of the massive gun.

The Lieutenant moved her head at a wet sound coming from behind and below her.

"You need to use less oil on that loader, I can hear the excess splashing out." stated the Lieutenant but before she could hear her gunner's answer she heard someone step on the small ladder on the back of the tank. She turned her head, expecting to see one of the soldiers stepping up to tell her something. Instead, she found herself looking at her own reflection in the glass of a Tau'ri full-face helmet. She could see a human face through the glass, it grinned at her.

"Bonjour." greeted the Tau'ri as the sound of a pin being pulled filled the air. The tank lieutenant's eyes widened as the Tau'ri pushed her forward and dropped the grenade down into the compartment of the tank. With that, he leaped off the tank the power suit allowing him to jump a distance that no man would be able to do naturally.

"Get out of the Tank!" yelled the tank commander as she tried to do the same and had just pulled her body out of the tank when it went off. Instantly the inside of the tank began a death trap as the compartment filled with thousands of small fast moving fragments. She jumped to the ground as fire shot out of the hatch of the tank. She looked up to see fire shooting out of the top of the tank, the gunner was screaming as she was burned alive inside. The driver was slumped over the front of the tank with blood running down the front of the tank.

She jumped to her feet only to see the soldiers, which were supposed to take part in the training attack open fire in the direction that the Tau'ri had run. That is when she saw that the small group of soldiers which had been following behind the tank as a rear guard was all lying in the ground dead.

As the Colonials fired into the woods, they never saw the two French soldiers in cover in the woods with light machine guns on them. When they opened up they the Colonials dropped like flies, only the tank commander didn't get hit and that was because the burning wreck of the tank protected her from the fire.

"Frak me." cursed the commander as she bolted into the woods in the hopes of getting away, she ran right past a group of French commandos. The Frenchman just watched her run, before moving up to the tank. The French commandos quickly spread out to carry out their different goals; four of them pulled four posts and placed them around the tank. Once in place, multiple lights began to shot out of all four pillars as the computers began to scan the massive colonial war machine. Others commandos where doing similar things with the equipment of the colonial soldiers and lastly the two of them where busy placing small objects in the brush around the tank. It took them only minutes to finish their work and disappear back into the woods.

After they disappeared into the woods before multiple Colonial Army vehicles plus two supporting Raptors arrived over the remains of the tank. Teams of soldiers with weapons raised jumped out of their vehicles and moved toward their fallen comrades.

"Damn those fraken, Tau'ri." cursed a soldier as he reached down and rolled over a fallen soldier. When he did a click could be heard as the colonial realized that they had walked into a trap. Seconds later the eight claymore mines, four of them on either side of the tank went off. The mines sent out death to the colonial soldiers who had come to answer the attack adding to the death total.

**A Colonial Commander was dressed in his formal uniform as he stood in front of a news camera which had been set up for his interview. **The story was going to be about the record number of people signing up for the military and what this meant. They had decided to do the interview in public right in front of a large military recruiting center on Caprica. The center took up the entire bottom floor of the building and had huge ground to ceiling windows, which allowed passer buys to see all the men and women in colonial military uniforms. Normally the center only got a few dozen people a day to come in and sign up but today there where lines outside the door.

"So how many people have signed up today?" inquired the news Woman as the story went out live across all the colonies.

"We will not know for sure until the end of the day, but we are running out of forms." answered the Colonial Commander with a slight smile, before the news woman could ask another question the commander's head exploded in a ball of bright blood, white skull and brain matter. The horrible mixture spread out everywhere including onto the former model turned news reporter. She let out a horrible scream, which caused the people in the recruitment center to turn and look at her through the massive windows.

The people inside had only begun to understand what had happened when another bullet ripped through the glass, slamming into the chest of a sitting recruitment officer. That told them what was going on as they rushed to take cover from the distance sniper.

Three quarters of a mile away from the recruitment center, inside a normal looking apartment building a man looked down the barrel of a Tau'ri sniper rifle. He had watched the head of the commander explode when his bullet had gone through his head, then he moved to take down one of the recruiter for a good measure. With that done the Irish Army Ranger sniper folded his rifle back into a briefcase before headed out the door. Making sure that he left no sign that he had even broken into the apartment.

With that done, he moved down to the Colonial version of the subway and thanks to rush hour traffic he blended into the mass of humanity which was heading down into the heart of the city. There were TVs built into the train cars which showed the news. Just as he expected the image of the colonial commander getting his head blown off was now playing none stop.

"Damn those Tau'ri." cursed a man not realizing that he was standing right beside a Tau'ri sniper. "They are nothing but terrorists who will not show themselves against us in a fair fight."

"Maybe this is the way they fight." stated the Irishmen

"Then they are cowards as well as terrorists." said the man "You should stand face to face with your enemies as equals."

"Did we do that when we nuked them?" asked the Irish Ranger as he remembered the flash from the Colonial nuke on Valhalla.

"I don't believe a word those people say and neither should you." answered the man

The Irishmen waited until he reached the proper stop before getting out. When he left he moved a few blocks and entered the Colonial version of a Starbucks Coffee. The Irish Ranger moved past the line of Colonial Civilians getting coffee toward a table where four men sat in a booth. Four of them where busy typing on their computers whiles the other was faking reading a book but really was guarding the three Tau'ri hackers.

"I see your work is done." greeted the guard, another Irish Army Ranger as he looked toward the TVs which were showing the effects of the other ranger work.

"Well that is what they pay me for? I wanted to take another shot but I had no clean targets," answered the ranger as he looked toward the three hackers, one was American, another was South Korean and the last one was Chinese's. If the Gua'uld who had taken the ancestors of the colonials had not taken humans from all across the world those three would have stood out, but the false god had not so they just looked like any normal colonial working on their computer. "What sort of damage are those three up too?"

"No offense, but we are doing a lot more damage than you can with your little toy." said the South Korean woman hacker. "I personally just diverted the waste water in the city's water perfection system."

"And what will that do?" asked the Ranger

"In about an hour all the taps and water pipes will be full of raw sewerage." answered the Chinese Hacker "That will cause a lot of issues, providing clean water for a city of this size will take a lot of resources. I have done something equally as damaging but in a more roundabout way."

"Oh what is that?" asked the American with a smirk as the two army rangers realized that these three hackers where trying to outdo themselves.

"I just hacked into the colonial military supply orders and changed the numbers on requests forms," said the Chinese "Soon whenever a colonial unite requests a shipment of machine gun bullets they will instead get a shipment of soap."

"Very nice." said the America "I however hacked into a nearby artillery factory and changed the automated computer control, machine tools. Now one in every 7 shell that come out of that factory will have walls just thin enough that when the colonials try to fire the shell it will explode in the barrel."

"I don't really know what to say to that," answered a Ranger as he checked his watch. "Come on let's get to the train yard, we want to get out of the city and to our next target area."

**The high mountains of Sagittaron were the tallest in the colonies and as far as the colonials knew they were the tallest on any habitual world.** While this was for the most part true, these mountains would not even break the top fifteen on Earth, however they did have their Earth counterpart beat badly when it came to the size of the ranges themselves. The mountain range which the Nepal and Indian Gurkhas found them working in was almost the size as the Indian subcontinent and had was almost as populous.

The people were stuck building cities in small cramp valleys, those cities were overflowing with people making some of them no better then slums by the standards of the Tau'ri. In-between the mountain ranges where small flat planes but if possible they were more crowed then the cities which sat in the narrow valleys.

"Damn and I thought the slums in New Delhi was crowed." reported a Gurkha as he looked down from the mountain top at the city below. From his view, it was as if everyone down there were nothing more than ants.

"Pay attention, the convoy should be heading up the mountain," answered Major Labh as he looked down at the mountain road, which snaked its way up the side of the mountain. It was just wide enough for two cars to move side by side, if someone moved a little too far one way they would rub against the side of the mountain, the other way meant a long fall down.

The Gurkhas moved into position, they had picked their location with care. It was a rare spot where the ground was not as steep but it was still covered with large rocks giving them hiding spots. The road infront of them also stood out it was one of the few spots with a small observing area where people could pull their cars in and check out the view.

"Convoy just passed checkpoint 2." Said a voice over the radio as one of the men near the road tossed out a spike strip, the leading vehicle which looked as if it was a clone of a Humvee rolled over the spikes and instantly the tires blew. The first of the twin buses behind the Humvee also ran over the spike stripe blowing out its tires. The second bus crashed into the back of the first. The trailing Humvee stopped itself in time but before the confused colonials could figure out what was happening a Gurkha ran up to the vehicle and tossed a live gardened through the open window. When it blew, it took all four men with it.

Hearing the explosion caused the Colonials in the first Humvee to turn their heads toward the source of the blast. That made it even easier as they were not looking toward the rocks where the main Gurkha force was hiding, with a quick burst from a light machine gun ended the four colonials in that Humvee.

With the majority of the protection, force destroyed the Gurkhas turned their attention toward the two large buses, they almost looked like school buses only they where painted black. The drive and the single guard inside each bus gave up without a fight allowing the Gurkhas in. What they found as a bunch of scared and frightened women and children on one bus and an almost equal amount of scared men on the other.

"It's alright." reassured Major Labh as they busted down the metal mesh door which separated the bulk of the bus from where the guard and driver where. "We are Tau'ri, we came to help you."

That seemed to get to the scared colonials, as they calmed down a little but still looked at the Tau'ri with some fear in their eyes.

"You're from Mr. Spiros church right?" asked Major Labh as one of the woman nodded.

"Yes, we are Mr. Spiros followers and the followers of the one true creator," confirmed the woman "They are taking us to a reeducation camp for our religious crimes."

"Not, anymore we have Owls waiting to take you all off world but we need to get to the extraction point," explained Major Labh as his radio suddenly came alive.

"Colonial Raptors are impound; they must have seen the smoke." reported one of his men

"We need to move now," ordered Labh as he moved down the line of his bus with his kukri knife cutting away the ropes, which hand held the religious prisons to their seats. They got out of the buss just as three Raptors came around the side of the mountain. Clearly, they did not realize that this was a Tau'ri raid and thought it was some kind of accident. It was only when they saw men and women running up the road away from the crash did they realize it was a raid of some kind.

"Halt, stop where you are!" came a voice from a load speaker on one of the Raptors, when the civilians did not stop the sound of a chain gun spinning up could be heard.

"All forces open fire!" yelled Major Labh as he and the Gurkhas opened up from their location before the chain guns on the Raptors could. The raptor pilots pulled back from the sudden fire coming from the mountain. Once they realized that they were under attack they turned their guns away from the escaping prisoners and toward the Gurkhas. The chain guns barked as they sent thousands of rounds into the firing positions of the Gurkhas, luckily the rocks provided extent cover.

"I got a lock!" yelled a Gurkha over the radio, the sight of smoke from a missile followed by an explosion as one of the Raptors went up in a fireball answered what had just happened. Still there were two Raptors and they would have called for reinforcements, the Gurkhas could not stay.

"Popping smoke!" yelled Major Labh as he and others Gurkhas tossed smoke charges between them and the Raptors. Within seconds, the hillside was covered with a thick smoke, which provided some cover for the Gurkhas as they began to guide the civilians up the rock face toward the landing area where Owls would be landing.

"We need to bring those others down!" yelled a Gurkha as the Colonial chain guns keep firing.

"They got!" yelled another only to be drowned out as two quick explosions filled the air. At first Major Labh was confused and then out of the smoke flew two Owls. They must have appeared behind the Raptors and destroyed them with their own missiles.

"Is anyone hit?" asked Major Labh

"I have two men down, one is KIA the other should be fine but needs to get off world." reported one of the squad leaders.

"Minor cuts and scrapes but that is all." reported another squad leader as the others checked in. They all reported the same, they had taken a few cuts but other than that they were combat ready.

"Alright get our dead and wounded to the Owls, they will take them back to Valhalla. Everyone else move out, we don't want to be here when the Colonials come in force." Ordered Major Labh as he watched the first Owl take off full of saved civilians.

**Colonel Jack O'Neill Jr. led the Special Forces team that he had been training to work together for a while. **The multinational team was assigned to this mission because the goal was so important that if something went wrong they didn't have one nation to take the blame. The mission was going so smoothly that it was causing Jack to worry. They had arrived over Sagaittron and had used ground penetrating radar to scan the old pre space flight military airbase in the mountains outside of the capital city of Tawa. Aside from a small protective detail based on the surface there was no life signs coming from within the bunker itself. It seemed that the main defense of the religious bunker was simply large blast doors.

"Alright let's find these ZPMs." ordered Jack as his team followed the tracer to a large wooden crate in the back corner of the room. With their power suits they quickly lifted up the top of the crate to show a line of boxes. Each box was different and made out a mix of hardwood, gold, silver and other rare metals.

Jack opened one of the boxes, instantly the darkness of the bunker lightened from the glow of the ZPM. Jack quickly opened the other boxes and there before the eyes of the Tau'ri forces where six ZPMs. They knew one of them was a fake but still the sight of six of the most powerful ancient power sources right before them was enough to take their breaths away. Quickly the Tau'ri began to switch the real ZPMs with fake ones they had brought.

"We need to find the other crate, look for similar markings on the side of the crate," ordered Jack as the team moved out to find the remaining six ZPMs.

"Sir, I found it." said a man as they moved to a matching crate.

**Kara Thrace loved being out in space, the freedom of movement it gave and the ability to pull of moves in her viper which she couldn't do in atmosphere. **Right now she hated it, because she was seeing nothing but the normal shipping lanes which was used constantly. The small asteroids which could be seen along the route were so well known that it no longer interested her.

"One last jump." reported the pilot as the Raptor prepared to jump. There was a normal winning sound which came from the FTL drive. There was a flash of light and she expected the next thing she saw to see Sagaittorn in the front window of the Raptor. Instead, she saw a black metal wall in front of her.

"What the frak!" yelled Kara as milliseconds later she realized what had happened. The Raptor had jumped into a side of ship. Things like this had happened in the past, which is why they had corridors over the worlds set aside for ships jumping in to avoid this.

"Athena, protect me." prayed Kara as the side of the ship they had jumped into exploded, shards of metal went flying at her. She raised her hands to protect herself and most of all her visor, her suit was armored and designed to survive a Viper exploding around her. When she opened her eyes again she was still alive, still strapped into the tail end of the raptor and was floating away from the ship. She expected to see a battlestar or another colonial ship. Instead she saw something impossible, a room floating in space. Before her brain could process what she was seeing a ship started to appear around the room. It was a strange cigar shaped ship with a tower rising from it. The backside of the ship was flattened out and was likely the engine.

"A Tau'ri. I jumped into the middle of a fraken Tau'ri ship." exclaimed Kara

**Alarms where blaring onboard the Akula as Captain Ramius and the other officers and men onboard wondered what the hell had just happened. **One moment everything was fine, then the ship rocked from an explosion.

"What happened?" asked Captain Ramius

"No idea, sir." yelled a man over the alarms blared. "Sir, we have a gap in the haul, in sections 21 and 22. Shields are holding the air in and emergency hatches are closed."

"Sections 21 and 22 are crew quarters, there isn't anything there which could cause an expolotion." Said the XO

"Not sure sir, but we have a bigger problem." answered the officer "We are visable, over a colonial world and with this gap in us we can't cloak, and our shield is tied to the cloak."

"So we are siting over a colonial world with a hole in us, no cloak and no shield. With no shield going into hyperspace radiation would kill us all. We have a team on the ground as well." grumbled the XO "How long until the Colonials are here?"

"Sensors are down on one side, attempting to reroute power around damaged area but either way it will not be long." reported the officer

"Send an SOS to the Brittiania and the other ships, we need them here now." ordered the XO

"Already done, sir. They are at least 10 minutes out." answered the radio operator.

"XO, I need you at your launch station," ordered Captain Ramius in a calm voice which seamed to be loader then the alarms. "We are going to arm the mark XIIIs"

"Yes, sir." confirmed the XO with a gulp, the XIII where the largest nukes that where onboard the ship. They were more destructive than the mark IXs which would be loading into missile tubes.

"All hands to combat stations, arm all weapons and prepare to defend ourselves." ordered Captain Ramius as the XO moved to his combat station beside the Captain. Both of them pulled keys from chains around their necks, they put them into key holes and turned.

"Did you know, that Akula means Shark." Inquired Ramius in a calm voice, before the XO could answer he went on. "Either way, the Colonials will soon learn what we can do."

**Well I hope you liked this chapter, I would like to make something clear this chapter and the one before happened within 30 to 45 minutes in my mind. Yes, I actually had a raptor jump into the side of a cloaked ship, it is one of those twists of fate of war that just happens in any war. I will let you guys decide if that was a luckily break or not for the colonials. Now until next time please keep reading. Thanks, Wilkins75.**


	39. Chapter 39

**I am trying something new, I recently got Dragon speaking program hopefully this will improve my spelling/grammar. This will also hopefully, allow me to also increase how soon I get chapters out. Now I hope you enjoy this chapter.**

**Thanks Wilkins75**

**Chapter 39 Wolfpack Part Three**

President Richard Adar sat in the command bunker outside of what remained of the once proud capital city of 12 different worlds. Around him gathered what remained of his top military, political and economic advisers. Most of those gathered were the junior advisers since the cabinet had taken multiple casualties during the Tau'ri mortar attack on the Quorum building. As per the articles of colonization, he as president could not appoint new cabinet advisors without the consent of the Quorum. Normally this would not be a problem; however, the Quorum itself was in disarray due to the number of casualties taken in the attack. Until they could reform, the underlings would have to fill the shoes of the more experienced members of the cabinet.

"So what do we know?" inquired President Adar to the gathering of advisors before him.

"Mr. President." started the man filling in for the secretary of defense, who had sadly lost his life after being pulled from the remains of the Quorum building. "We are still in the process of reactivating the mothball fleet and we are preparing multiple options for counterattacks caused by the sudden reappearance of the Cylon threats."

"Those Fraken, Tau'ri must have made a deal with those in human monsters." snapped the acting Secretary of Transportation. "They are trying to make us worry about those machines instead of focusing on them."

"Well then they have done that," confirmed Admiral Adama as he sat with the other high-ranking officers of the Colonial Navy. "With multiple Cylon fleet gathering just on the other side of the red line, we can spare any ships for a large-scale attack this Valhalla."

"Judging by the map they seem to have their ships and defensive position." said one of the advisors "So they are likely bluffing and are incapable of launching an attack without us knowing it first."

"I am afraid you are wrong." Stated the head of the colonial Navy Admiral Nagata "to the untrained eye I understand why you would think that. However under closer inspection it becomes clear that there are newer ships are positioned close together in three large groups with the groups linked together by a line of their older war era ships. The newer ships would form the heart of any attack on us and they are perfectly positioned to do so without any notice. Therefore we cannot really deploy ships that are normally in position to defend from attacks from those locations to other fronts without opening the risk of the Cylons launching an attack and destroying at least one if not more of our worlds before we could do anything to stop them."

"Therefore around a quarter of our active fleet is now pinned down in defensive positions awaiting attack that will likely not come while another enemy is launching actual attacks that are fleet cannot respond to because they are defending against the other threat." added Admiral Adama "The fleet is spread too thin to fight a two front war."

"How soon can those warships in the reserve fleet be reactivated and put into the line?" inquired Pres. Richard Adar to Admiral Adama.

"Not for some time Mr. President." confirmed Admiral Adama "we are trying to get as many ships up to combat readiness as we can however we have run into multiple problems on both the civilian and military side."

"What sort of problems?"

"Sir, the military problem is based off the fact that my predecessor lacked the funding to maintain the ships at the proper readiness that they should have been." answered Admiral Adama "that problem can't be helped, is already done. The problem that can be fixed however is much more complex and yet much more straight forward."

"And what is that?" inquired Richard Adar

"Sir, simply put some of the business leaders and the general public don't actually believe that this war is going to actually be a war," answered the aging Admiral. "They think that the 13th tribe will simply roll over and sue for peace in the moment we flex our muscles. They fail to see even with the distraction of the capital that one world can stand up to 12 others."

"And you think they can?" asked the most senior political advisor to the president

"Sir I know they can." confirmed Admiral Adama. "We have seen what one of their ships can do against a whole fleet of our own, if what they say is true and they do control 20% of this galaxy then they have access to more resources than we can ever hope to get. We must also take in consideration that they have allies which could come to their aid and therefore tipped the scales towards them when it comes to population."

"As much as I want to disagree with the admiral's assessment of the situation I fear he may be correct." Confirmed the head of the colonial military "However we are not without hope, they have a admitted that they have recently started colonization of different planets and therefore we must assume that they do not have a large military fleet we hold the edge over them when comes to numbers. We also don't know how this war they are waging will affect their military campaigns against us. If we can strike a blow fast enough we might I stress might be able to claim an edge sufficient enough that they will be open to the idea of peace talks in which we will be able to come to terms with them."

"But what sort of terms?" inquired the personal religious advisor to the president "we must get the holy world of Kobol, back from those nonbelievers in the Lords of Kobol."

"I'm sorry but I must focus on keeping the worlds we have before we start focusing on getting another world," snapped the head of the colonial military.

"Mr. President, I must report that we are preparing the shipments of Hada's fire and nuclear warheads to the mining colony at Nysa." reported Admiral Nagata "they should be arriving and ready to be fired within 36 hours."

"Mr. President." said a Marine general "I know you have ordered us not to prepare a shipment of chemical weapons for delivery by drone to Valhalla, however we have taken the liberty of estimating how much gas would be required to take out the believed population of the Valhalla."

"I gave no such order for you to prepare anything related to poison gas." Snapped the president "did you not receive the same warning I did?"

"I did Sir." Confirmed the general "However with all the advantages that the Tau'ri likely have over us at the moment it may be for the best if we reconsider this option?"

"Well considered the matter closed, we will not be using any biological weapons on the Tau'ri." snapped Adar "I will not escalate this war anymore than I have to."

"Yes sir," confirmed the general as an aide walked in and handed a piece of paper to the head of the colonial military.

"Sir we have confirmed reports of multiple Tau'ri attacks on 10 different worlds and on shipping." reported the general with the shake of his head as he read the paper.

"What kind of attacks?" inquired the political advisor.

"Some of these things don't seem possible," admitted the general, he paused for a moment to gather his thoughts. "We have reports of entire small infantry units disappearing on PT runs with the only sign of them being fresh blood on the roadways which they were spells to be running down. We also have confirmed reports of enemy sniper activity within our own sniper school. One of our tanks was also destroyed and the supporting infantry wiped out in outburst of small arms fire. They seem the following terrorist tactics instead of actual military tactics."

"Could that be how they fight?" Inquired the secretary of education Laura Roslin, since she was one of the few members of the original cabinet left alive she technically had one the highest ranks among those gathered here. Since her field of expertise was not relevant to the military situation she had remained quiet until this point. "From everything we know, our cousins from Earth have spent a lot more time fighting amongst themselves than we ever did. Could they have adopted what we consider terrorist strategies has normal military ones?"

"Highly unlikely." answered the head of colonial military research and development "any sane culture within stand for their warriors to act in such a way."

"A sane culture by our standards, but the Tau'ri do not follow our standards." countered Laura Roslin before anyone could add to the conversation another aide walked in and rushed towards the president. Everyone stopped and waited for a moment as he ate whispered into his ear; quickly the present grabbed a remote control, which had been sitting on the table in front of him. He aimed it at one the many TVs that lined the far wall and switched it to a news broadcast coming from the world of Sagittaron. Everyone gathered at the meeting turned and saw a strange looking ship hovering over the familiar world of Sagittaron. They had to wait for a moment as the volume was turned up and the voice of the news broadcaster came out of the speakers.

"If you are just joining us we are looking at live images of what appears to be an earth ship over Sagittaron. Judging by our cameras it seems that the ship had taken damage of some kind and multiple Colonial ships are now closing in on the position." Said the news broadcasters voice over the speakers. "We have just received word from the military high command of Sagittaron, ordering civilians in large metropolitan areas to head to their nearest fallout shelter or to take cover in secured buildings"

"What the frak is going on?" asked Adar "How could a ship like that get so close to Sagittaron?"

"**Attention Tau'ri ship stand down and prepare to be boarded," said a voice over an open wireless broadcast channel.** Thanks to the military headset built into her flight helmet Kara Thrace was able to listen into the talk not only on the civilian channels but to the military ones. She could not hear about the fleet of warships all heading toward the Tau'ri vessel she could see them. From her view inside the remains of the destroyed Raptor, she could see at least nine battlestars heading toward the vessel along with dozens of smaller ships and countless Raptors and Vipers. Behind them was even more warships all heading toward a single ship.

"We got them now," said Kara as she hit her emergency location beacon, instantly her location began to be broadcast to the nearby colonial ships. With so many in the area she would be picked up as soon as they got neared her.

"Attention Colonial Vessels this is Captain Ramius of the Tau'ri Stealth Ship Akula." said a strange voice over the wireless.

"Captain Ramius, this is Admiral Boseky for the good of your people stand down and surrender," ordered a clearly Tauron voice, the accents gave them away to Kara. "You are surrounded and have no hope of escape."

"Well Admiral Boseky, maybe you need to understand that as a stealth ship we are armed almost totally with nuclear warheads." said Captain Ramius calmly in a voice that reminded Kara of a senior officer giving advise to a younger officer. "And what I see is a large list of targets all of which can be destroyed with ease."

"Your ship is disabled, and if you could run you would have by now. Also the Tau'ri government has said they will not use nuclear weapons against civilians, so Sagittaron is safe from you." said the Admiral "You have one minute surrender now or we will end you, now spare the people under your command."

**On board the Akula Captain Ramius was busy looking at the targeting list that the intelligence people had come up with before the Akula had left Valhalla.** With 12 worlds full of different targets, it was understandable that not everything was known about them. He scrolled down the list of targets for Sagittaron until he found two, which he liked. He selected them and studied their locations on the map of the planet; sadly, one of them was on the other side of the planet and out of his reach but one was not.

"Sir what are your orders?" inquired the XO "we are within range to beam down the crew to the planet's surface is needed."

"Hopefully we will not need that." Admitted Captain Ramius "however have the system standby for emergency evacuation just in case. Are all weapons ready to be fired?"

"Yes sir." confirmed the weapons officer "we have a targeting solutions on all approaching colonial warships with mark IX on standby for beam strikes on approaching colonial aircraft."

"The mark XIII are also on standby." reported the XO as he looked at the target selected by the Captain. "Sir, if you want to destroy that I recommend the missile in tub 1."

"That was my thoughts." Confirmed Captain Ramius as he looked at the clock, they had 30 seconds until the time that Admiral Boseky had given them to give up give up.

**Down on the surface Colonel Jack O'Neill and his team where busy loading the Colonial ZPMs into specially designed cases.** The team was careful to make sure that when they switched the real ZPMs for the identical looking fake ones that the Tau'ri had brought with them.

"Sir, if the Akula is a no go, for an extraction do we follow with our backup plan?" asked his second in command.

"We have two plans, we can either hold up down here until another ship arrives in orbit for a beam out or we can break out and do the same thing in the woods, only there we only have to wait for an Owl." reported O'Neill as suddenly his radio came alive.

"Sir, we have movement on the life sign detector," reported the man he had left guarding the entrees to the bunker. "Colonials are moving toward the entrees, we have company."

"Damn." Cursed Jack as he looked toward the men and women he had with him loading the ZPMs into the carry cases. He had to decide what to do fast, if the Colonials found out they were down here then they would ask why. "Remain hidden, but if you are discovered open fire."

"Understood sir."

**Onboard the Battlestar Niko, Admiral Boseky was in constant contact with the Colonial Navy Command center on Sagittaron. **

"How much time do they have?" asked an Command over the wireless from the Command center located deep under Mount Othrys.

"Seconds." confirmed Admiral Boseky as suddenly alarms began to go off onboard the battlestar.

"Sir, we have missile launch from the Tau'ri vessel!" yelled the Dradis operator, it took the computer only a few seconds to discover the flight path of the missile. "Sir, it's heading toward the surface. somewhere north of the capital."

**Still floating in space over Sagittaron Kara Thrace watched in horror as a long missile shot out of the body of the Tau'ri vessel**. The white body of the missile stood out against the blackness of space, it cleared the ship before it's main rocket engine engaged and it turned toward the planet.

"My Gods, they are attacking the planet!" exclaimed Kara as she turned her head to follow the missile as it dove down.

**Alarms where blaring across every colonial warship and base on and above Sagittaron as they tried to figure out the path of the missile.** They quickly found that it wasn't heading toward any of the large population centers but the missile hadn't broken apart into multiple smaller warheads which could fly wherever they wanted.

"Sir, it seams to be heading toward us," reported the Dradis operator at Colonial Fleet Command Sagittaron.

"I see." said the Admiral in charge of the massive underground complex. "I guess that is the best we could hope for, we are so far underground that we will be safe."

"Send out alerts to the nearby cities for evection and destroy that Tau'ri ship." Ordered a second officer, alarms had already alerted the base and the large blast doors which led to the surface were already closing. The base had no active defense against a missile strike; instead it had a strong defense. The plan was to wait out the blast and let the nuclear blast break upon them like a water does against a stone.

The order went out fast, the Colonial military didn't even try to hid the order and instead sent it in the clear so that even the civilians could hear it.

"All forces destroy the Tau'ri vessel."

With that all the Vipers and Raptors which had been flying around waiting to attack all turned and headed toward the crippled Tau'ri vessel as fast as they could.

"To the Tau'ri vessel Akula, this is your last chance," ordered Admiral Buskey over the wireless, he knew that a captured Tau'ri vessel would give the navy more intelligence than a destroyed one. "Surrender now or die. Respond now!"

"Here is our response," replied Captain Ramius over the wireless as a flash of light filled the CIC of the Niko. A scream went up as Admiral Buskey turned around to see a strange looking cigar shaped case sitting on top of the command table. A counter could be seen through a small clear screen and it only had 5 seconds left.

"By the Lords of…" started Admiral Buskey as the counter reached zero.

**A blinding flash of light filled the void of space, causing Kara to turn toward the source. She had to shield her eyes from the remains of the fading light.** Then she saw that somehow one of the battlestars had gone up in a flash of light.

"How did they nuke a battlestar?" asked Kara as another flash of light filled the void of space, this time it was much closer to her as a nuke went off in the middle of a flight of incoming Vipers. Once again Kara saw no missile being fire from the ship but yet multiple nuclear explosions was filling space with light. That is when Kara saw more missiles coming out of the Tau'ri ships, these missiles where smaller then the one large one which had come out earlier. These missiles also flew toward the incoming Colonial forces.

**The first missile that had been fired by the Akula screeched through the atmosphere of Sagittaron as alarms kept going off on every military base across the world.** At the command center under Mount Othrys where in a mad dash to figure out where the missile was heading, the answer was not to their liking.

"It's heading right at us," reported an operator at the group of Admirals.

"Make sure the blast doors are sealed." Ordered the head admiral in a calm voice, before she looked around and saw all the scared faces. "Do not worry we are under 3,000 ft of solid Granite, nothing can get us down here."

"Impact in 30 seconds." Said an operator as he held his breath, all eyes then turned to look at one of the multiple surface camera feeds. The nuke would go off above the ground, or at worse a ground blast neither of which would reach them.

"All hands brace for impact." ordered the Admiral without looking away from the screen. To his confusion, there was no blinding flash, but he did see the missile slam into the ground.

**Unknown to the Colonials the missile that the Akula had fired was actually designed to destroy underground bunkers.** Thanks to the Cold War, the nations of the United States, Russia then the USSR and other powers such as China and Great Britain has done a lot of research and development on ways to destroy military bunkers such as Cheyenne Mountain where Stargate Command used to be located. While the Colonial Command Center was deeper then Cheyenne Mountain the Mark XIII warhead was levels stronger then the Colonials believed a nuke could be. The missile bore through layers of rocks, it actually passed through one of the tunnels on the upper layers.

A worker taking a break when all this started actually say the missile pass by him before it smashed through the floor into another lower layer. That is when the missile came to a stop, for a second nothing happened and the nuke went off.

**Miles away from Mt. Othrys sat the most holy site in the 12 colonies, the temple to Zeus on Sagittaron.** Built into Mount Olympus was a massive temple complex with over a hundred rooms built into the white marble of the mountain. There where over a dozen shrines where prayers to the Lord of the Lords of Kobol was given. If a person could see through the mountain, they could see that the temple was shaped in a plus sign with entrees pointed North, South, East and West. At each of the entrees stood a giant statue of Zeus, the largest of these was the one pointing North toward Mt. Othrys. While these mountains where not the same ones which stood on Kobol they stood the two homes of the Lords of Kobol on Olympus and their enemies the Titans.

The sound of the sirens and the streak of a missile body across the sky had caused the people who had come to this holy and out of the way site to look toward Mt. Othrys. A few raised cameras, seconds after they did the ground rocked and Mt. Othrys seemed to rise out of the ground.

"By the Lords of Kobol!" cried a priest, as the mountain which represented the home of the Titans began to fall in upon itself. Within seconds, the mountain which had stood there had disappeared within a cloud of dust as the peak dropped into the massive void created by the nuclear warhead going off deep underground. Then the ground below the worshipers feet began to give as part of their mountain began to fall into the hole. Screams filled the air as people rushed through the temple toward the Southern exit, as they did large colonnades cut into the rocks themselves began to fall down.

By the time, the dust had cleared and the void created by the nuke had been filed, Mount Othrys was gone. Part of Mount Olympus had also fallen down into the void created when the bomb, which on the surface could have destroyed everything within a 150-mile radius, had gone off and when that had happened it started a chain reaction from both mountains. Like when a tower of blocks falls when too much support is removed the twin mountains fell down together making one huge massing of boulders some of whom weighed hundreds of thousands of tones each.

The image of the destruction of one of the most holy shrines in the 12 colonies was broadcast across not only Sagittaron but across all the colonies of was not the only images coming across the screen of the millions of people who had stopped what they were doing to watch the news. They where watching a relativity small and damaged Tau'ri ship hold its own against a much larger force.

**Onboard the Akula the situation was getting much worse; the damage caused by some still unknown force had been great.** They still had no shield, no cloak and the damage selection would have meant that radiation coming up the ships own reactor which would increase during hyperspace would spill into the ship instead out into space killing the crew. The damage was too great for a quick repair; they would have to set the ship down to have a chance to do repairs. On top of that, problem was an even worse problem; the ship was running out of missiles to fire.

"Sir, we only have ten missiles left, plus the 7 other mark XIII in their bays," reported the XO as he looked up at the radar screen. That gave him nothing to be hopeful for, the colonials seamed to just keep having an unending stream of ships. More ships just kept jumping into the system and the colonials had learned that if they entered a certain range they would somehow get destroyed so now they were standing off and firing their guns far outside of the normal range for their weapons. Instead, they fired their massive guns at the stationary Akula and since there was nothing to slow down the shells until they reached the atmosphere the shells would fly until they hit the enemy ship.

"Alright, fire all but one of the Mark XIII and every missile we have left," ordered Ramius as the ship rocked as shells from the colonial navy began to hit the side of the ship. "Once they are away set the reactor for overload and the Mark XIII to self-destruct after the crew is beamed away."

"Yes, sir." confirmed the XO

"This ship is going before its time." stated Captain Ramius

"True, but we did take out 19, no make that 20 colonial warships." stated the XO as the ship rocked as the six more mark XIII launched out of their own special launchers built into the body of the ship.

The two officers watched as the missiles flew toward their targets, at almost the same time the missiles broke apart to show the four targetable vehicles inside each missiles. Each missile held a smaller warhead. With 24 warheads heading toward the colonial fleet, each of the colonial ships opened fire with their own anti-missile defense system. A wall of bullets formed a ring of protection around each of the ships, one by one each of the missiles where destroyed as the Colonial defense system brought them down.

"Well that is it." Said the XO sadly as suddenly alarms began to go off, then the radio came alive.

"Akula this is HMS Britannia." said a voice over the radio "Come in Akula."

"Britannia this is the Akula, we are happy that you made it." Said the XO as the Captain simply smiled.

"Never thought I would be happy to hear a British voice." Said the old Russian Captain.

**Kara was smiling inside her helmet as she watched the Tau'ri ship get blasted into little bits but suddenly a strange light coming from her right caused her head to turn toward it.**

"You have got to be frakening me." cursed Kara as she saw three ships come out of a large vortex of energy. One of the ships seamed to be just as large as a battlestar while the other two were the smaller Tau'ri ships she had seen before. Instantly the Colonial seamed to turn their fire onto the larger ship while the two smaller ships headed toward the damaged Akula.

**Onboard the Britannia Admiral Moreton held a cup of freshly brewed tea in his hands. **The native of Northampton was a veteran of the navy and had commanded actual ships in operations off the coast of Africa before being assigned to command the most powerful ship ever to be in the British Navy.

"What do we have?" inquired Admiral Moreton

"Sir we have 47 enemy warships within the area of operations with more ships heading toward us." reported the Captain.

"Very well, well let's get the job done. We will keep the Colonial busy while the others recover the Akula and the strike team." explained Admiral Moreton "Captain charge all weapons and plot a course which will led us toward the right flank of the Colonial forces, keep the area in front of us open in case we need to go to hyperspace."

"Yes, sir." confirmed the Captain as the main weapon of the Britannia charged, all the while the countless numbers of shells fired by the Battlestars and other warships bounced off the shield as if they were flies.

The colonial fleet had never seen what came next, a beam of green light shot out of the front of the Tau'ri Battleship. The beam cut through three battlestars with ease and kept going. The damage did not end there as multiple rail guns and long distance cannons rose up from their positions inside the Britannia. Within seconds of getting into position, they all opened up as one and in a move similar to old sailing warships, the Britannia fired broadside into multiple colonial ships. The battlestars and other colonial ships took the fire from the Tau'ri cannons better than they did the beam fire but not by much. Then the Britannia opened up with their normal Asgard beam weapons instead of the far more powerful Ancient weapon. The remaining Colonial warships began to fire nuclear missiles at the Britannia.

**Kara pumped her fist as the Tau'ri ship disappeared multiple blinding flashes of light. **For a brief moment she actually thought that the ship was destroyed then to her horror two more colonial warships exploded from fire from the Tau'ri vessel. The Tau'ri came out of the nuclear blast without a mark on it, still moving along at speeds which should have been impossible.

Movement in front of her caused her to turn back to the Tau'ri ship which had been up against the ropes. The two smaller ships where on either side of the damaged ship, for a moment she thought they where going to extend boarding bridges but instead beams of energy shot out of the two ships surrounding the damaged ship in light. Then with a burst of speed, the three ships began to move away from Sagittaron.

"They are fraken towing it." cursed Kara

**Down on Sagittaron, the massive blast door which lead into the religious bunker was beginning to open. **Waiting inside was an international team of Special Forces on a mission which had gone sideways with the damage of their main escape route. The teams took cover behind multiple large boxes and waited for the door to open.

"Remember do not fire unless we have to." Ordered O'Neill over the radio however before his team could respond they were all engulfed in light. When the light faded, they found themselves standing in the hanger of a Daedalus class warship.

"Welcome onboard Colonel." said a clean-shaven young man in a British Navy Uniform. "The Admiral needs to know if you finished your mission."

Colonel O'Neill turned toward the group he had assigned to get the ZMPs, with a grin they opened their cases to show to the young officer 11 glowing ZPMs. With the other ZMP which they had already taken they now had all 12 which had once belonged to the Colonials.

"Yes, we did." Confirmed Jack

**The Britannia rocked a bit as enemy shells and another round of nuclear weapons hit the shield which surrounded the battleship.**

"Sir, outer shields have dropped to 79%." reported an officer as a third nuclear strike of dozens of colonial warheads hit the shields of Britannia. The Britannia like all Missouri class battleships and the Yorktown carrier had two levels of shields, first the older bubble version which surrounded the ship like a bubble and the second an even stronger layer which was skin tight against the side of the ship.

"Sir we have incoming colonial aircraft." Reported the radar operator onboard the Britannia

"Do we have word of the Strike team mission?" inquired Admiral Moreton to his radio operator.

"Sir, we just got confirmation the mission is a success and the Akula is being towed back to Valhalla." said the radio operator. "They have just entered hyperspace, they are in the clear."

"Well then, our work here is done," reported the Admiral "Helm plot a course back to Valhalla."

"Yes, sir." said the helm officer, within moments all the weapons where secured and a vortex of energy appeared in front of the battleship. With a burst of speed, the Britannia entered subspace leaving a destroyed colonial fleet behind them.

**Kara Thrace was at a loss for words, she had a front row seat to the destruction of an entire colonial fleet by four Tau'ri warships**. To make it worse two of those ships had not even fired a shot and another had been damaged. She had always known this war was not going to be easy but now she knew just how bad it was going to be. The images she was seeing was also being broadcast across all 12 colonies as the normal people saw the power that their cousins could bring to a fight, a power that was something they hadn't even begun to image.


	40. Chapter 40

**Chapter 40 Aftershocks**

The reports were still coming in and with each new report the damage to the colonial navy, Sagittaron and his government kept growing. The first thing that was confirmed was the number of ships lost in what was now being called in the media the fall of the Titans or the Battle over Sagittaron. The last one was less often used because it got slightly confusion when the media compared the battle to the multiple times the Cylons had attacked Sagittaron during the last war. In total 29 ships would not returning along with multiple squadrons of Vipers and Raptors, which had disappeared in nuclear flashes while on route to attack the damaged Tau'ri ship.

Then there was the destruction of the Mount Othrys was damaging on two fronts, first the Navy command bunker located under it was now gone along with all the senior staff there. Second that mountain was considered holy and now it was nothing more than a mound of boulders stacked up on top of each other. Even worse was nearby the nuclear which had brought the mountain down upon the Colonial Navy had caused part of the much holier mount Olympus to come crashing down. While it had not brought it down totally, it was now leaning and a large part of the summit had fallen. The temple located inside the Mountain was now gone. The columns had been broken and the roof with all the inlayed tiles which showed images of the Lords of Kobol had come crashing down on the shrine. The image of the most famous statue which sat outside of the Northern entrees to the temp with his arm outstretched and a lightning bolt raised high in the other falling down was being replayed over and over again on the television.

While less visible and not as flashy as the destruction done to the Colonial Fleet and the planet itself was the damage done to his government. Talking heads where already talking on the TV and many more would be getting on the screen as they rushed to get ratings from the attack. A lot of blame was falling on him for something out of his control, people were screaming about why there were not enough ships to stop the Tau'ri failing to note how many ships had been there. There was some who even had the gall to say that Sagittaron had been shorted on the number of ships protecting it. They pointed to how many ships where protecting Caprica failing to add that those ships also guarded Gemenon. The only good news was that the massive failure over Sagittaron had pushed the news of the smaller attacks by Tau'ri forces out of the news.

"Mr. President." said his top political advisor "We need to talk; we in a hard spot and we need to change."

"I know, but how?" inquired President Adar as he sat behind his desk in the Presidential bunker, a bunker he now knew was not as safe as it was suppose to be. He had been told that the Presidential bunker was deeper than the Navy bunker on Sagittaron but he had pushed and found it was deeper by only 15 ft. He had wanted to scream at the Army General who had tried to lie to him, but he had not. He knew the general was trying to make him feel safe so that he could focus on leading.

"We need to bring the government together, we need to get the Quorum back online." said the Advisor "Now we need to talk over your speech to the Colonies."

**A couple rooms away the senior members of the Colonial Navy where looking at similar reports of that their President was looking at. **

"29 ships, we lost 29 ships in a single engagement and didn't gain a single thing from it," said Admiral Nagata with a shake of her head.

"We did learn one thing," stated the head of the Colonial Navy Research and Development.

"Something we didn't want to learn, they can cloak whole ships." snapped Nagata as she put her finger on the man's chest. "Something you said was impossible."

"It should have been, the power needed to cloak a ship of that size would be on a scale that is impossible to imagine," said the head of RND

"Well we need to start imagining things," stated Adama "If you need proof take a look at the nuke they dropped, how big was that again?"

"Early estimates are between 15 and 20 gigaton." reported the RND head as he lowered his head. "The only good thing is that the radiation from the blast was all contained underground."

"And the bombs they are using against us in space, how big are they?" inquired another Admiral

"They appear to be a solid 10 gigaton bomb, which is just on the edge of what we thought possible," answered the RND

"So we can match them?" asked Adama

"No, I said it is on the edge of what he thought possible. On paper it would work but the bomb would be so big that it couldn't be delivered apart from by a massive truck making it useless in battle." explained the head of the RND "We do have one piece of good news, we think we have found a way to ID their cloaked ships."

"How?" asked Admiral Nagata "Did you find a way to detect them?"

"In a way." explained the head of the RND as he danced around the issue. "See there are millions of floating pieces of junk in space around our worlds, old satellites, pieces that fell of ships and simple rocks. Dradis tracks them all but software filters things moving too small to be ships out of the system. We believe that by changing the software we can track them and when they bounce off a cloaked ship we will be able to see and ID it."

The Admirals and Commanders in the room shared a quick glance, it was not a lot but it was something. The problem was it was a passive system and so it would not work away from the colonies where the number of trash floating in space was lower make large areas where nothing was. A major problem would be that it would not do much to stop the smaller cloaked ships, they could just fly around the trash.

"We also have something else to worry about," said the head of the RND as he moved away from the cloaked ship issue to something just as bad. "At first we thought it was just something wrong with our math but we can't hid from the issues, somehow we have traitors in the fleet."

"What do you mean?" asked Adama this was the first time he had heard of that.

"We mapped the source of every nuclear explosion done by the Tau'ri, in their attack the areas we have ID as the likely blast source while inside the ship was just outside the edge of the haul we believed that the bomb had been placed on the haul," explained the RND head. "All the latest ones show the source of the blast came from within every battlestar, mostly in the CIC or in the hanger bay."

Everyone's eyes widened, this was something they had not thought possible. They had traitors within the colonial fleet.

"How could they have gotten a nuclear warhead onto the ships?" inquired an Admiral

"Better question how did they get people into the colonial navy?" added Admiral Adama "They didn't have years or even months to get spies in place and it has to be spies because a single one wouldn't be enough to do all this."

"True, and what makes it even more interesting is that some of the ships had been on patrol and hadn't even returned to the colonies since contact with the Tau'ri." added the head of the RND. "It can't be Cylon spies either. We had issues with nut jobs supporting machines during the war but that wouldn't explain how they got Tau'ri nukes onboard."

"So you're saying that it couldn't be Tau'ri spies who placed the bombs because they wouldn't have time to get the spies in place. It couldn't be Cylon spies because it was Tau'ri nukes," restated Admiral Adama "Could there be any other possible way that the Tau'ri could carry out these attacks? Anything and I mean anything, we have seen that the Tau'ri are capable of things we think impossible."

"Not unless you think teleportation is possible," stated the head of the RND earning a few laughs at the idea that was even possible.

**At the same moment in the void between the Milkway and Pegasus Galaxy the USS Yorktown exited hyperspace a few thousand yards away from a single Daedalus class warship. **

"We are right on schedule." Said the Captain of the Yorktown to the General who in charge of the ship. Before he could say anything a blinding flash of light filled the bridge, when it faded it revealed a man dressed in a Chinese army uniform. In one hand held a large briefcase, before anyone could say anything he brought the case up and opened it to show a glowing ZPM sitting in a lined case.

"General, complements of the 12 colonies of Kobol." said the PLA man in broken but understandable English. All of them grinned a bit as they looked at the stolen ZMP which would power the only aircraft carrier the Tau'ri currently have to do battle with the former owner of the ZPM.

"Take it down to the engine room," ordered the General "With that giving us a boost we should reach Valhalla within 36 hours."

**Onboard the massive ship commonly called the Home world by the humanoid Cylons, Cavil and the other Cylon models where gathered around the table.** They all had shocked expressions as they watched the news coming out of the Colonies, when they thought that the situation in the Colonies couldn't get worse it got worse. Talking heads from every political party was trying to spin the effects of the battle over Sagittaron, they generally fell into three basic camps.

One camp was trying to spin the battle as a hard won victory since the Colonial Navy had damaged a Tau'ri ship and forced them to fall back, that group was very small. Another group was pushing that this was a sign that they needed to make peace with the Tau'ri before the Colonial Navy was crushed. The largest group was surprising to the Cylons, there was massive amount of anger at the Tau'ri for destroying the temple of Zeus, that group was calling for war more than ever. The only thing which all the groups seamed to agree upon was their anger at President Adar.

"I almost feel sorry for the fool," admitted Cavil as he looked around at the other models who had gathered around the table. "However we do get to enjoy front row seats to the fall of the 12 colonies of Kobol."

"I agree." confirmed the Six "However I didn't think it would be this one sided, how many Centurions did we have lined up to take that command bunker on Sagittaron in our planned attack?"

"Five nuke strikes to weaken the area before landing five thousand Centurions to take the bunker." Answered a Four "And here the Tau'ri did it with on missile strike. I think we picked the right side in this fight."

There was no argument with that statement; instead, they turned their talk to their own issues.

"How many good DNA samples did we get from our mission to our home world?" inquired Cavil

"We got 3,712 DNA samples 62% of those samples are female with only 38% male." explained a two as all the Cylons shrugged a bit. That was an issue but a minor one, when it came to rebuilding the humanoid Cylon population it was better to have more female then men. The only real pain in the neck was the process that it would take to get the cloned bodies of the long dead to mature. Cavil tried not to remember the process which mirrored the normal human lives, a clone would come out of the chamber as a child and then grow into whatever age needed before being downloaded into multiple copies who would all share the same childhood memories and personality. Cavil had blocked off those memories from the other copies when he took down the original five models.

"When does the President's speech begin?" inquired Cavil

"About half an hour." answered a three

**The air was cold enough that Admiral Helena Cain could see her breath as she stood on what she considered the most holy ground on all the 12 colonies of Kobol.** In fact in her mind the small hill called the Hero's Mountain was more holy then anyplace in the universe, not even the newly discovered world which could be Kobol equaled this hill in her mind and heart. A true priest or priestess of any of the religious orders would argue that either the Temple of Zeus on Sagittaron or another one of the main temples was the most holy but they were wrong in her eyes. Then again the Temple of Zeus was now halfway destroyed thanks to the Tau'ri. This spot, where the legendary 71st Infantry Regiment held off 15 major Cylons attacks, the fight those men and women did on this spot saved the Capital of Tauron, Hypatia which city limits was only 15 miles away.

All around her where the monuments to the great heroes of the war, below their feet were the catacombs which went down five levels and was full of those dead heroes. Down there in halls cut from the rock and covered with marble rested so many who died in battle, their cremated ashes sealed forever behind stones so that future generations could see how many man and women died to protect the colonies. There were other military cemeteries on other worlds most had more than one actually, but this was the most important to Helena and to the Colonial Military as a whole.

The sound of marching feet caused her to turn to look down the road only to see a group of 12 honor guards' soldiers moving up the road with their rifles held in black gloves as they kept up with their unending patrol of the hill. As per tradition they would not stop their patrol, only after their 12th patrol would a new group of twelve honor guards take their place, the process had not stopped in 35 years and she hoped it would never stop.

The guards paid her no mind, it was well pass visiting hours but seeing her rank on her long military trench coat, they paid her no mind and moved on. It was not unheard of for family members to visit the graves of the dead and veterans would return to visit friends who had proceeded them. Once the guards where gone, Admiral Cain checked her watch to make sure the time was right.

"Five minutes late." said the Admiral who was known for chewing out anyone who was over 10 seconds later for reporting at his or her posts. She was about to pull out a knife and flick it open and close like she always did when she was board but she didn't have to.

"I am sorry for that," said an older man as he moved up the hill toward her. "These old knees aren't as fast as climbing hills as they used to be."

"And here I thought Sagittarons took pride in climbing their mountains and hills." stated Admiral Cain as the older man laughed an old man laugh. One that said if he was younger he would show this young person what a he could do.

"My knees may be going but my brain is still as sharp as any blade." Said Mr. Spiros as the head of the Spiros family looked around at the grass and trees which made this feel like a park instead of a grave yard. This was a solemn place and the only lights which currently fought the darkness where lights along the roadway and around statues which covered the area."I believe the last time I was here was with my brother when he visited the temple to the fallen on top of the hill."

"I was there," admitted Cain as she remembered the holiest man in the colonies visiting this place all those years ago. "I was a young commander at the time."

"I was a lot younger then as well," laughed Spiros as the two of them started up road, which lead around the hill until it reached the summit of the hill. "My brother prayed so that this place would never see conflict again, but you and I both know that war has come to us."

"Yes, and the damn pencil pushers will not let me fight." cursed Cain "I came to them only an hour after the attacks offering to command one of the tasks groups only to find out I have been black listed by the damn people who think I am at fault for this. I tried to warn them that the Tau'ri needed to be seen as a threat and that they needed to be brought to heel."

"Some would say getting Colonel O'Neill imprisoned wasn't the way to give a warning." countered Mr. Spiros

"Actions speak loader then words," said Cain as the two of them walked in silence for a bit, within a couple of minutes they passed the one of the three lines of trenches which had been dug by the defenders which had been saved so future generations could see. The legends where that Ares himself had come down to help dig the trenches and fight but those where stories which took away from the actual men and women who died on in those trenches.

Finally, they reached the summit where a statue of the men and women who defended the hill stood in bronze. The statue showed them fighting the Cylons while above them, the God Ares stood dressed in a colonial army uniform, with his traditional shield and spear, however the shield was on his back and in his normal spear hand, he held a rifle. Around the statue were twelve 80-foot tall flagpoles, which flew each of the world flags night and day. The 13th flagpole was 40 feet taller at 120 feet and flew the largest flag of all flag of the colonial government followed directly below it by a slightly smaller but still massive flag, which showed the hooked cross in a white circle on a red field, which was the symbol of the 75th division, which held the hill.

The Tau'ri the fools that they were considered that a symbol of hate and evil because some group called Nazis had used it but to Cain and all true Tauron warriors it was a symbol of courage and world pride.

"Speaking of actions the reason why I asked for this meeting is because I and the other colonies need your help." Said Mr. Spiros "Adar is too weak to carry out this war as it should be carried out. He may show a strong front now, but in time he will give in to the Tau'ri and we will end up with nothing."

"You are planning to remove him?" inquired Cain "I admit I don't like the guy, in fact I hate him but I am not loved by the military I can't help much in a coup."

"There will be no coup, a coup in a time of war will do more harm than good." explained Mr. Spiros "No, instead myself and many others have a different plan, we will reinforce Adar. We will fill the new positions opened by the Tau'ri attack on the Quorum with those who will make sure the war is carried out correctly. If we have to Adar will become a show piece but in the end he will bend to our will."

"I see." said Cain as she rubbed her chin. "And how could I help, like I said I am not loved by the military command. The high command will never post me anywhere important and removing the fools will cause a lot of trouble in time of war."

"True." confirmed Mr. Spiros "But if you're willing to step out of the uniform I can assure you the position of Secretary of Defense. You would be the fourth highest civilian in the entire colonial government behind only the President, Vice President and Secretary of State. You would even be above the Generals and Admirals in the military."

"And you can give me this how?" asked Admiral Cain, in her heart she didn't want to leave the uniform which she had worked so hard to get however she would be above all those weak fools who had tried to get her to retire in shame. "If I remember correctly you backed Adar's opponent in the last election."

"That is true." admitted Mr. Spiros "Well the Quorum has to confirm anyone the President picks to take open offices and in a sign of unity Adar will be strongly advised to offer me the office of vice president and when that happens I will bring you onboard."

"I see, well when you take that office I will do everything I can to help you." said Cain "My only demand is that we put the Tau'ri in their place."

"We will." confirmed Mr. Spiros "And I will get my son and grandsons back from them. They have no idea what they have unleashed upon themselves. We will destroy them."

**The Owls flew in low over the grassy fields of Caprica, in the distance, the still smoking remains of the Capital could be seen but for members of the most elite force in the United States Military, Delta Force they had more pressing concerns. **

"Five minutes!" yelled the copilot over the intercom system to the group of men behind him. The copilot like the other men flying in the mix attack force of American Delta, Russian Spetnazs and Chinese Army Commandos were also Special Forces members. In this case, members of the United States Army 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, better known as the Night Stalkers. They where taking on what could be the most dangerous mission but could also have the most effect in ending the war. The pilot double-checked his location, he had to stay just on his assigned track the last thing anyone wanted was a crash between cloaked Owls.

**President Richard Adar took a breath as he took the spot behind another mock up of a famous location inside the now destroyed Presidential Estate, the Grand Entrance**. In reality, the Grand Entrance which was the official welcoming location for anyone visiting the Presidential estate would be amazing, white marble pillars inlayed with gold with a golden seal of the 12 colonies of Kobol on the floor and another greater image showing all the Lords of Kobol looking down from the ceiling. However in truth behind him stood nothing more than a very detailed image of the grand entrance, which had reduced to rubble by the Tau'ri. It looked good on camera but that is all it was for. This speech would be going out live across all the wireless channels; everyone in the colonies would hear his words today.

"My Fellow Colonials, we have all seen the images coming out of Sagittaron. Today the Tau'ri hit us and hit us hard but just like the opening moments of the Cylon war when the situation looked dark we know that we will overcome anything the Tau'ri throw at us." Started Adar "We now know the full force that the Tau'ri have under their command and we know that with the blessings of the Lords of Kobol we will come through this storm."

"The Tau'ri have hit us not only on Sagittaron but with multiple terrorist strikes across the colonies. These attacks have no place in an honorable war. When we defeat these terrorist Tau'ri they will be treated like the terrorists they are." said Adar, honor was very important among the colonies most of all Tauron. "The 13th tribe has shown themselves not only to lack any honor but to be traitors to humanity, they have allied themselves with the Cylons who are now sitting on the red line. The Colonial Navy has moved to respond to any attack but while they focus on the Cylons our cousins stab us in the back, another sign of their dishonor. We must all realize we are in a full war and our actions must reflect this."

"First, we need to address multiple issues facing us so that we can move forward to take on the Tau'ri." Explained Adar "First and foremost we need to get the Quorum reassembled so that the government can be whole again. To do this I am pleased to announce that former Quorum member of the Quorum Mr. Spiros has accepted my offer to become the Vice President of a joint party government. In this time of need we have to come together to defeat our common enemy, we can't be fighting among ourselves."

"Secondly…" started Adar as suddenly across every TV screen in the Colonies Presidents Adar's image shrunk so that it filled only the bottom right hand of the screen. At first everyone was confused, even Adar who could see himself on one of the TV screens which lined the far wall.

"What the frak?" asked Adama as he along with what remained of the Cabinet and the most senior military officials watched from another room. The answer came when strange music began to come out of the TV, then words flashed across the screen. It was mostly brass with a few string instruments but it was totally unknown to Adama. (1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky Final)

"We have not yet begun." It read followed by "Remember Valhalla."

"The Tau'ri." exclaimed someone in the room. "We have been hacked. How could that happen?"

Then the black disappeared being replaced with three images, one in each corner with Adar still in frame in the other corner. The images showed what appeared to be bridges, highway overpasses and a large communication towers. Judging from the area around the focus of the images, they appeared to be on multiple words. Soon those three images where replaced as a slide show of different live images from different worlds appeared showing multiple structures. Cars were passing under overhead passes and a train was passing over a bridge when the music added many bells. Then the music picked up and just as it did the images of the bridges, overpasses, and communication towers began to explode. All the explosions seamed timed to the music.

"By the Lords of Kobol." exclaimed the secretary of education who stood beside Adama, when the music stopped so did the explosions. The images rotated through again showing the after effects, bridges where in the water, overpasses had fallen and massive wireless communication towers had fallen. The towers where backups to satellites but it was a powerful image, it also showed the power the Tau'ri had. They had just carried out multiple attacks across every colony and they even did it to music while interrupting a presidential speech.

"They planned this," said Adama as new words flashed across the screen.

"Your turn," It read as the image changed to a black and white video of a what appeared to be a farm, true the barn was a little bigger than but nothing jumped out to the Admiral at first. Then just as the image began to zoom in did he realize, that was the fake barn and farm house, which hid the entrees to the underground, the video was coming from a missile camera.

"Get down!" yelled Adama seconds before the explosion rocked the bunker sending it into darkness.

**Outside the explosion few up into the sky as the flight of Owls decloaked as one as they made their landing approach. **The colonial government had adopted a method of placing some of their most important command centers away from the military bases, which would be the main target in any Cylon war. They relied on keeping them hidden away in secret locations and making them look like nothing important. To a person passing by on the road the farmhouse and barn would look just like that, they would have no idea that it was the Presidential Command Bunker. The colonials had kept the location of their bunkers so secret that only high-ranking officials knew the location and sometimes not even nearby base commanders knew. That was good until someone learned where the bunker was and the Cylons had been more than willing to share that with the Tau'ri. The Owls separated to their assigned landing area, their back ramps lowered, the owls never landed and instead hovered above the grass.

"Go!" yelled the pilot of the Owl as members of Delta force joined the Russian Spetnazs, Chinese Army Commandos assaulted the Presidential Bunker. The mission planners expected that with all the other explosions taking place around the 12 worlds that the Special Forces would have 20 minutes before any colonial reinforcements could arrive. Their mission was simple, capture of kill the President of the 12 Colonies of Kobol and anyone else had ordered the nuclear attack on Valhalla.

**Well I hope you liked this chapter, the best of the best of the Tau'ri Special Forces are now descending upon the Presidential bunker of the 12 colonies of Kobol. Now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	41. Chapter 41

**Chapter 41 The Wolves at the Gate**

The Owls descended down through the smoke caused from the bomb blast, the cloaked Snow Owls did not have the side doors that the Special Forces liked but the back ramp was good enough. The members of American Delta, Russian Spetsnaz and Chinese Airborne Commandos ran out the backs of the owls each of them ready to fight, as the best of the best from their nations they had been first in line for the newest equipment and they had each personalized their weapons to their own special needs.

They had planned the assault out as best as they could with such a short time to prepare, the blueprints given to the Tau'ri by the Cylons was the key. With that, they had been able to make up a computer mock up of the bunker and practice their assault in the simulators but simulators did not prepare people for everything. There was no way for the simulators to fully prepare the teams for the heat and the smoke, which was rising from the destroyed Raptors, which had filed the barn.

"This is Delta One we have reached the barn," reported Delta one leader as they reached the burning barn. Thanks to the filters built into their full-face helmet, they were breathing clean air but the heat was something they could have done with out. They moved through the barn toward a concreate box, which sat at the far end of the bar. The box was about a 50ft by 50ft and 8 ft tall. Normally sticking out of the side of the building was a large outer blast door, that door was now inside the chamber. Delta force entered to find that the guards which would have been task to defend the chamber where already dead. Their blood covering the floor where a large brass inlaid Seal of the President of the 12 colonies of Kobol sat.

"Damn it." cursed Delta leader as he looked at the much larger blast door which was protecting the shaft which lead down into the heart of the presidential bunker. That door had n't been blown away by the bomb as they had hoped, but it was hanging on by a thread it wouldn't take much. "Delta One we need the cutters up here now."

"On our way." said a Texan voice over the radio.

It took less than a minute for the cutters to arrive, on the surface the four Delta force seamed to be equipped to clean a deck not go up against a blast door. They carried what appeared to be power washer handles with an extra long muzzle attached to a large pack on their backs. The members went to work fast as each put one of the muzzles to each of the corners, than almost as one the backs began to ruble as they began to generate power. As soon as the generators began to work hot beams of fire began to shot out of the muzzles and cut through the metal of the blast doors.

"How long?" asked Delta One to the Texan cutting away.

"90 seconds." answered the Texan as the door began to be cut away. Inside his helmet Delta one cursed that was a minute and a half cut into their max attack window of 20 minutes. They had 20 minutes to fight their way into the bunker but once that time was reached they would pull out and get on board their owls. If they stayed longer than that they would be overrun by Colonial forces.

"Will that effect or plans?" asked another member of Delta force as the commander looked down at the computer pad built into the wrist of his power suit. He pulled up a map of the base, which included the 12 main defense points. Overall, the base was set up with a long elevator shaft set at a 30 degree angle which lead down from the barn into the ground. Below the ground there was only two areas which broke out from the shaft. The first was the command center where most of the presidential staff would be located. That area was set up like a normal office with hallways and areas for people to do their business. There was also a small area set aside for crew quarters but that was not an area of focus for the attacking Tau'ri force. Their main target would be located in the deepest part of the base, pass the office area was another elevator shaft set in at 30 degrees which went down to the main Presidential bunker where the President would be safe from all harm in the eyes of the designers. The shafts was where the strong points where located with heavy cannons and fixed machine guns ready to fire up at any attackers. There was a total of 13 blast doors which would be closed as soon as the Tau'ri breached one.

"No." answered Delta leader as they kept cutting through the blast door.

**Down in the bunker, the situation was very confused; the smoke which had filled the bunker for a short time had been pulled away thanks to the state of the art filtration system.** The lack of smoke did not make the situation any better, men and women where rushing around either getting to their defense position or getting weapons of their own.

"This is Admiral Nagata calling Colonial Defense group Caprica City." Said Admiral Nagata over the wireless but the only thing she got back was static. "This is Admiral Nagata calling any colonial forces around Caprica."

"The lines are dead, we are on our own." confirmed Admiral Adama as he walked up carrying a large bag. He placed it down on the table and pulled out a pistol and after making sure it was loaded, he handed it to Admiral Nagata. "We have to protect the President."

"The blast doors should hold them for hours." said one of the Marines "Besides we have a whole Company of highly trained Ares Spears Army Special forces, that is a 150 men here to defend us. They would be walking into a meat grinder, this bunker was designed to stop Cylons, it will stop Tau'ri."

Suddenly the sound of heavy cannon fire rumbled through the bunker.

"What level is the first heavy cannon on?" inquired Adama, the marine blinked as he thought about it.

"The first heavy cannon is in the elevator at checkpoint 3 the entrees to the shaft." answered the Marine

"That is past two blast doors." added Adama as he remembered the lay out of the base.

**Heavy cannon fire ripped through the air as the Colonial Army Ares Spears fired upon the American Delta Force. **The Americans had breached the first level and entered the long elevator shaft which went down into the ground, the two elevators would run down the center area with two sets of stairs on either side.

"DIE FRAKEN TAU'RI!" yelled a Colonial load enough for the Delta force members taking cover to hear.

"Well we sure got their attention." Said one of the Delta force members as he aimed his gun over the small barrier, using the built in camera to the barrel of his gun which broadcasted into his helmet he took aimed and fired. He smiled as he watched his target fall down.

"We sure did." confirmed another as the heavy cannon kept firing, joining it was small arm fire but thanks to the high explosive rounds that the Colonial used they where almost as load as the cannon.

"Sir, I got 40 people on the life sign detector within a 150 feet of us." reported another Delta force member to the commander. The intelligence reported that the colonials had between 120 and 170 armed members of their specials forces assigned to protect the bunker. Most would be rushing forward to hold back the attacking Tau'ri while the much smaller Presidential protection force which severed the same basic serious as the Secret Service would protect the President himself.

"Delta One to Spetsnazs we got their attention, we are go!" reported the Delta force commander as the second prong in their two prong attack prepared to go into action.

**Far below two teams of Russian Spetsnazs where preparing to attack the Colonial in a way they had never thought possible.** Using modified Tok'ra tunneling crystals which could make a tunnel a 500 ft long in 30 seconds, they had made a tunnel which lead down to the lowest level of the Presidential bunker and with a final crystal the tunnel stopped right in front of the concrete wall of the lowest bunker. With Delta drawing the fire from the Colonial forces and pulling them up toward them it left the bottom level open for the Spetsnaz force.

The tunnel had stopped with only a few inches of concrete between the Spetsnazs and the lowest level of the bunker. They quickly placed the breaching charges around the concrete, with a quick twist of the cord the charges went off sending shards of concrete into the presidential bunker. Before the dust had even settled the Spetsnazs had entered, most of them had Saiga-12 automatic 12 gauge shotguns up and ready with their standard rifles across their backs. They entered to find what they expected to find the bottom level of the bunker where emergency power generators where along with the water system.

"Move up and out." ordered the Spetsnazs leader as the team began to move up. The first Colonial they met was a member of the Presidential protection detail, he had his pistol out but when he turned the corner to head down to see what the nose was he had not expected to find a Tau'ri shotgun pointed at him. He did not last long two blasts of solid slug shotgun rounds ended his life sending his blood splattering against the white walls of the bunker. The blasts did alert the six guards in the armory, they could not understand what could have caused the sound. The answer came when a hand popped around the corner and tossed in a grenade. The guards did not stand a chance, seconds after the explosion ripped them apart a Spetsnaz stepped around the corner and fired a single shell into the remains of the each of the guards to make sure they were no longer a threat.

**Alarms where blaring inside the command center as the most senior members of the government and military tried to figure out what was going on**. They knew that the Tau'ri had breached their main defense line but had been stopped by the defending force somehow; a strike force of Tau'ri had appeared at the bottom level of the bunker and was fighting their way up.

"How could they be down there?" asked a marine general "It doesn't make sense."

"No, it doesn't but they are fighting their way up toward us." stated Admiral Nagata as she looked at a map of the base. The Tau'ri had them pinned down and while the force fighting its way down was moving, slowly the one attacking upward was blowing through the makeshift barriers. The problem was that the designers had focused on stopping all attacks coming down the shaft not attacks coming back up. In fact they had made it easier to attack upward so that colonial forces defending the bunker could make counter attacks. The Tau'ri had turned the table and where now forcing their way up.

"Can't we send some of the Ares Spears down to stop the Tau'ri coming up?" asked President Adar, he stood with the other governmental leaders. He had been on his way down to the lower level when the alert of the new attack had forced the protection detail to change their plans.

"No, we are just holding off if we move them down to stop the other force will advance on us." explained an Army General "Right now all we can do is hold them off until reinforcements arrive from the outside."

"How long will that take?" inquired the President

"The earliest a force could arrive is ten minutes," explained Adama as the bunker rocked again, causing dust to fall upon the leaders of the colonies.

"What will happen to the government if we die here?" asked someone "Everyone in the line of succession is here?"

"Likely Mr. Spiros will become president." said the legal advisor "The Quorum never approved him but the president nominated him and they could approve him after we die."

"Let's focus on not dying," snapped Adar as another explosion rocked the bunker.

**Delta force had advanced through two of the Colonial defense lines, using rockets and grenade launchers to take down the cannons and machine guns before advancing.** Delta not gone through the assault without taking hits of their own, five of their members had to be pulled out with wounds and one had been killed. If it were not for the advance, armor the number would have been higher.

"Cannon is down! Move forward!" yelled Delta one as the cannon which had held them up for so long went up in a fireball. With that gone Delta advanced on the retreating colonial forces, the retreating colonials had to leave their wounded and dead behind. Once again, they tried to close the blast doors and unlike the other times they closed them in time.

**As the blast door closed the members of the Ares Spears, who had retreated to the other side took a moment to take a deep breath**.

"Head count who all is left?" asked a senior member as he looked around, of the 80 men and women who had made up the defense line only about two dozen remained, down below there was another 20 preparing the cannon and heavy machine guns.

"Frak, those Tau'ri straight to the underworld." cursed a nearby solider sensing what the senior officer was thinking as he looked at what remained of one of the best units in the colonies.

"Sir, how long will that blast door hold?" asked another

"A long time that is over 20 inches of solid steel." reassured the commander as he placed his hand on the blast door. "It will take hours for them to get through."

Suddenly beams on energy shot out of blast door, the beams began to move up cutting through the 20 inches of steel making doorways in the barrier.

"They are still coming through," exclaimed a member of the Ares Spears as he pointed toward the bright points of light which were cutting into the metal.

"That is impossible." stumbled the commander before he reformed his thoughts. "Fall back we will blast them when they breach."

"Yes, sir." Confirmed the soldiers as they quickly moved down the two-side staircase, suddenly behind them a small charge went off. They all dropped to one knee and trained their weapons on the two larger man size holes which had been forming when they descended however these where still being cut out. For a moment, they did not see it, then they saw at two smaller holes had already been cut through the blast door. These where not larger enough for a man to go through but large enough to fire out of.

"RUN!" yelled their commander as soft thuds filled the air, they all knew that sound it was the sound of two grenade launchers firing.

On the other side of the blast door, two Delta force members where firing MGL grenade launchers through the small holes. They had loaded the revolving cylinder, which held six rounds with two regular explosive rounds plus two tear gas and two fire grenades. The effects where ghastly, as they caught twenty or so Colonial soldiers in the open as they made their way down to the main defense line. Of the twenty only 8 made it down and of that 8 only 3 where in a condition to fight.

**Outside the Chinese Army Commandos where having an easy go of it, their mission was simple but important. **They were provide support if needed but their main goal was to prevent any colonial forces from arriving on the scene to rescue their president. In support they had all the Owls which had brought them to Caprica flying cloaked over their heads, each of them armed with missiles and guns. All the Chinese commandos knew this but it did not make their job easier, those Owls would only de cloaked if needed. If the Colonials saw them then they could shot them down.

"Owl 12 to PLA leader we have a column of vehicles heading toward you, I see 3 tanks and 15 trucks." reported the owl pilot.

The PLA leader cursed as he looked at his watch, that was five minutes sooner than they had expected. The 15 trucks was not that surprising but only three tanks was a bit of surprise, if this was an Earth bunker there would have been a column of tanks in the twenties or more not three. They would also have air support and so far the Owls have reported none but that wouldn't last long.

"Alright, let's prepare to give them a proper welcome." Reported the PLA leader over the radio to his men, they were all hiding in fields of wheat and corn which was part of the cover of the farm. As they expected the Colonials where following their normal attack plan, one to deal with a Cylon attack not humans. With their chrome bodies and giant frames the war era Cylons stood out in the woods, the Tau'ri where dressed in camo and had taken cover to hid them from their enemy.

Inside the bunker the news of the arrival of Colonial ground forces was not a welcomed, both the Delta and the Spetsnaz teams cursed. The Delta team leaders had to make their choice if they were going to pull out without finishing the mission. Since they had entered the bunker through the main entrance, the Colonies would know where they would be coming out of, so they had to pull out before they were trapped. The Spetsnaz team had used Tok'ra tunnel crystals so the hole they would pop out of when they fall back would be unknown to the Colonial.

"Delta one, we are pulling out." Cursed Delta leader as his team began to pull back, not even finishing cutting through the blast door.

"Understood Delta One, leave it to us," said Spetsnaz leader as they entered the command area of the bunker where the bulk of the leadership of the colonies would be. The Spetsnazs where advancing using their automatic shotguns with 100 rounds drums, thanks to the close quarters fighting aiming was not really needed when firing a shotgun on full auto. With the main body of the Colonial defense force fighting Delta the small force going up against Spetsnazs were mostly military office workers who had weapons into their hands. They never stood much of a chance; the Spetsnazs stepped over the dead as they advanced, if they were not using shotguns they were tossing in grenades into rooms full of defenders before they moved in.

On ground level the Colonial Commander in the first tank moved toward the burning remains of a barn, to either side of him were the other two tanks. The infantry which had been with the tanks on a training mission had gotten out their trucks and where advancing through the corn. The bulk of the infantry was behind the tank waiting to support it if they have to.

"Make sure you keep an eye open." ordered the Commander as he looked at the computer screen, which showed the real time video feed from the camera. The tank was on locked down so that the crew was safe from all harm. "We are dealing with Tau'ri not Cylons."

"Sir, we are perfectly safe behind all this armor nothing short of another tank could hurt us." said his gunner as suddenly his tank rocked as a missile slammed into the right side of the heavy tank. The sound of machine gun fire bouncing off the tank filled the air.

"**Damn it." cursed the Chinese Commando as he lied back down as bullets from the colonial infantry began coming his way. **The anti-tank missile he had fired had not gone through the side armor of the colonial tank. That round would have gone through any Tau'ri tank aside from the Leopard III and the Tsar heavy tank but it had not gone through the colonial tank. He was reward with the sound of that tank stopping as the treads fell off. At the same time, he had fired two light machine guns opened up on the Colonial infantry, which had gathered together behind the tank instead of spreading it. It was slaughter as the machine guns ripped into them from hidden positions.

Seconds later, two more rockets coming from the other side fired into the side of the far tank. Maybe it was a luckily hit our maybe the duel strike from two missiles breached the armor, but that tank quickly became a funeral piles. As the tank burned screams filled the air followed by explosions as the ammo inside the tank cooked off.

That left only one tank still able to move and fight, maybe the driver had forgotten about him but he turned his whole tank to face the point where two rockets had fired. This left the rear of the tank facing him and that was the weakest armor point of any tank besides the belly. With one quick movement the Chinese Commando reloaded his rocket and rose up to one knee. He took aim and pulled the trigger. The rocket flew straight and true striking the tank in the rear but to his amazement the tank didn't blow up.

"What the hell?" asked the solider as the tank's heavy machine gun located in its own small turret spun around and spit out fire. He did not stand a chance as his body was torn apart by the heavy rounds of the tank.

Away from the Tanks behind the burning barn, the first Owls had landed to tank on board the American Delta force which had exited the bunker. They carried their wounded and their dead on board.

"We are good!" yelled Delta one as his Owl took off, but it did not cloak. Instead it spun around and moved out from behind the barn so that the tank was in view.

"What are you doing?" asked another Delta member as the pilot selected a missile. The Owl rocked a bit as the missile fired off the rail and before slamming into the back of the tank. The owl's missile being heaver and more powerful pierced the tank unlike the hand held version had. The pilot then turned again and fired another missile into the disable tank to make sure it was dead. Both tanks confirmed their destruction by blowing their turrets sky high as they became mini man made volcanoes.

"Where are the other Owls why aren't they helping the Chinese?" inquired Delta One

"They are going to deal with the flight of Raptors and Vipers heading our way." Explained the pilot as the owl cloaked before pulling back to the extraction point.

**A half a mile away the rest of the Owls had formed up in a line all of them cloaked.** They waited for the last possible second and once all their air-to-air missiles had locked then as one they de cloaked and fired into the twin flight of Raptors and Vipers. Once the missiles had cleared the rails the Owls cloaked and headed back.

"Owl leader to ground teams pull out now, I say again pull out now the extraction point is going to become very hot very fast." ordered the pilot in command of the owls. "We have multiple air craft incoming."

**Down on the ground the Chinese Commandos had formed a defense line and had forced the colonials back to their trucks. **

"Understood, we will fall back to extraction point." Ordered the Chinese Commander as his forces began to leap frog backwards. This was a common move done by every military on earth, while one group keep up the fire to keep the enemies head down. Another group would move back and take up a new position; there they would fire on the enemy allowing the first group to pull back. The Chinese commandos had spent hours practicing this and they did it to perfection. The Colonials had to keep their heads down as the Chinese pulled back, taking their wounded and their dead with them.

Down in the bunker the Spetsnazs teams had started to run into trouble. The defending force from the Ares spears had realized that Delta had pulled out and had moved to fight the intruders coming from below. This made the cake walk Spetsnazs had been having more difficult. Most of the Spetsnazs now had to hold the main entrees to that level of the bunker while a smaller force of three men moved through the base hunting the President and killing anyone they came across.

"I got 15 life signs on the other side of the door." reported one of the three-man Spetsnazs hunting team as they moved to the main entrees. He turned to the other two and with a nod, he told them what to do. Both of them dropped their shotguns and pulled grenades. Then as one, they pulled the pins the same moment and the third opened the door. They tossed them in just as gunfire came their way, one round hit a Spetsnazs in the shoulder ripping through the armor and causing blood to pour out. He slumped against the wall his back to the room.

"Shit." cursed one of his teammates as the grenades went off filling the room on the other side with smoke and death.

"Go!" yelled the wounded Spetsnaz as his two comrades entered firing their automatic shotguns. More screams and bullets filled the air. Moments later a powerful explosions ripped the air in front of him, followed by silence. He turned his head and looked, there on the ground in what looked to be a Colonial Situation room was his two teammates, they had both been blown to kingdom come by a grenades.

"Shit." cursed the Spetsnazs as he got on his radio.

"Hunter team to command, Hunter 2 and 3 are dead and I am badly wounded. The colonials will be on me in moments," said the Spetsnazs as he used his blood covered hand to work the computer pad on his arm as best he could. "There is no chance of rescue in time I am activating my suits self-destruct."

"I understand, we are hard press and have to fall back," said the voice of his commander "Good Luck Comrade."

"Sir, it has been a honor," said the Spetsnaz as he activated his suits self-destruction. It was not an explosion instead with a single command all the soft ware on his suit was whipped followed moments later by small mini explosions in key locations to destroy any chance of intel or reverse engineering from happening. With that done, his power suit was nothing more than scrap metal. The Spetsnazs ripped off his helmet, which was now smoking like most of his suit and using his free hand he moved to his last grenade. He would not be captured, he would not dishonor his unit, his nation or his world he would end his life. He had just un clipped the grenade when it was kicked away from him as an older man dressed in a blood stained colonial admiral uniform came around the corner with a pistol in hand.

"You are a prisoner of war," said the Admiral who's blood stained name tag read W. Adama.

"Damn it." cursed the Spetsnaz

"Is the President alright?" asked the Admiral still keeping his weapon aimed at the Spetsnaz.

"I am alright," said a shaking voice in the distance.

It took a while but the Spetsnazs which had assaulted the bunker exited the Tok'ra tunnel, they moved toward the waiting Owls and boarded them just as flights of Vipers flew overhead and Raptors full of fresh troops landed and stormed the bunker in search of enemies which had already pulled out.

"How many did we lose?" inquired the pilot to the Spetsnaz leader as they took off.

"Three." answered the Spetsnaz leader "Three dead, two wounded, and we didn't even kill the President."

"Damn, that sucks." cursed the pilot as the cloaked owls flew away.

**Later that day the Colonials had their weapons trained on the captured Tau'ri as their President moved out into the sunlight.** All around him where a mass of colonial firepower, vipers and Raptors flew through the air, tanks and armed vehicles rolled over the fields and armed men and women stood guard.

"Mr. President how do you want to respond to this?" asked a Marine General

"The Tau'ri have hit at the heart of our government and the public need to know that we can repay the Tau'ri for what they have done." said Adar "Since we can't hit Earth, Valhalla will have to do. Prepare a shipment of Chemical Weapons for launch against the Valhalla."

"Yes, sir." said the General "If I may recommend something."

"Go ahead."

"It may be for the best if we don't send the chemical weapon first, it will give us time to build the civilian chemical suits for a Tau'ri biological attack in response to our own," advised the general

"Good, idea but I want that shipment prepared," ordered the President "How soon could you prepare the gas for an attack?"

"It will take about 36 hours to ship the gas to its launching point and another 12 or so to put them on the drones to attack," explained the General as the President nodded his head.

"May the Lords of Kobol watch over us all," said President Adar

**General Raj-Singh stood before the Valhalla Stargate in his full dress uniform, all around him stood multiple armed guards as flights of Eagle Fighters and Owls patrolled.** In the distance, he could see a Daedalus class starship and he knew others could respond within minutes. The gate opened as everyone tensed a bit as more armed men all of them in Tau'ri uniforms and battle armor walked out of the gate. Their weapons where raised and at the ready as they moved toward General Raj-Singh. One of them held out a computer pad, which the General placed his hand on. The machine scanned it and even took a DNA sample to confirm who he was. Once it turned green all the Tau'ri soldiers snapped to attention.

"Sorry about that General but we have protocols." said the leader of the group.

"I understand Colonel," said the General as he returned a salute. "I know what we are dealing with."

"I hope so, sir." said the Colonel as a vehicle rolled out from the gate, the edges of the vehicle came close to hitting the side of the gate but it made it. It was a simple six-wheeled vehicle with a single driver and a flat open air back. Sitting on that back was a large metal crate, it was 16 feet long. The guards moved to protect the crate as the General walked toward it. He moved to the center of the crate and typed in a code known only to 10 other people in two galaxies. When he entered the code, the locks opened and with a push the lid opened to show what on the outside looked like a normal looking gravity bomb. The only thing that made it stand out was the multiple warning tags in every language native to Earth as well as Ancient.

"Hard to believe something so small could be so deadly," stated the General as he looked at the strongest nuclear warhead in the Tau'ri war chest, the Mark XVII. The Mark IX had become the backbone of the Tau'ri nuclear force, the Mark XIII that had been used on Sagittarian was the largest deployed standard on ships. The other versions either had special uses such as the Mark XI, which was a rather weak nuke, used to destroy fighters which could surround a ship. The Mark XVII made the Mark IX look like a pop gun and was so powerful that only 20 had ever been made and they had been stored on a dead world.

"Sir that is the second most deadly weapon ever made by man." said the technician who had come with the bomb from the storage center. "The only thing we have worse is one of the BHBs and we only have six of them."

"BHBs?" asked the aid to the General, "I never heard of them."

"And you never did." ordered General Raj-Singh before smiling before nodding to the technician.

"A BHB or Black Hole Bomb is basically a mini black hole contained in its own time frame so it is pretty much frozen. However if you break the containment and drop that into a sun, you get a supernova." Explained the technician "It is the same system the Asgard used, we could destroy whole star systems with a single bomb."

"Well, let's hope we don't have to use either this or one of those on the Colonials," said the aid, the General looked down. He knew that he had a list of targets for this bomb; if the Colonials attacked Valhalla with a WMD this bomb would be their first response. It would turn hundreds of miles of a Colonial World into a nuclear wasteland in a flash of light and possible take hundreds of millions to their deaths.

**Well I hope you liked this chapter, the attack on the Bunker did not go as plan and the Tau'ri have suffered their first setback of the war. A war cannot be totally one sided and things go wrong and people die. Now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	42. Chapter 42

**Note:**

**Now, I have gotten a few reviews and PM about how long it has been since I posted and how the Dragon Speaking Program does not seem to help speed everything up. On the outside it may seem that way but Dragon has speed things up however life has gotten in the way. Friends coming home from long military deployments, family get together and 50 plus hour workweek has left me very little time and energy. I hope you understand my reasons and now the chapter.**

**Wilkins75.**

**Chapter 42 Horrors of the Future**

President Richard Adar sat on a Raptor flying across the void of space between Caprica and Tauron. It was a short flight and would normally just be done with a jump to save time but they wanted to keep the FTL ready in case the Tau'ri attacked.

"Mr. President are you alright?" asked an aid as he sat across from the President.

"I was just almost murdered." explained President Adar "How many did we kill?"

"We believe we killed a handful but we came up well short, we estimate that they attacked us with only around 30 people and they killed over a hundred." Explained the aid as Adar shook his head.

"How are the people taking the news?" inquired Adar

"Well once we announced that you were alive people calmed down but we are still trying to get a handle on everything the Tau'ri destroyed in their attacks." stated the aid "We are looking at billions of cubits worth of damage to roads and bridges alone without even taking into account anything else. The military is running out every they can to fix the bridges, they will place portable bridges out where they can."

"The Tau'ri hit us hard," stated Richard Adar "Part of me wonders if we shouldn't seek terms for peace."

"No, don't think that sir. The Tau'ri are throwing everything they can at us and we are holding our own sir." reassured the aid "They hit us with cowardly backhanded tactics which have no place in true warfare. We will win this fight, it looked bad when the Cylon rebelled but once we got on our feet we forced them out of the colonies."

"Yes, and now a fleet of them are sitting on the border watching humanity fight among themselves." added Adar "Every ship that is loss, every bullet fire and every brave man or woman who falls will only help them out in the end."

**General O'Neill and General Raj-Singh walked down a hallway in the far North of Valhalla, this base wasn't on any official maps and that was for good reason. **This was one of the major RND centers on a world already full of RND centers. Here they had been working hard on understanding secrets hidden away in multiple alien technologies, from Wraith to the Ori and from the Gua'uld to the Asgard everything was being studied here. There was a hanger full of different ships from totally intact Wraith Darts, which had been brought back to Valhalla to the remains of the Ori mother ships. Everything had been studied here. Now they had turned their attention to the Colonials.

The two generals past a window, which looked into a hallway to show remains of multiple Colonial Vipers which had been recovered. Some were nothing but scrap metals while others had been recovered almost intact. Teams of engineers where studying the craft to gain a better understanding of what it could do. In an nearby hanger where the remains of Raptors and still in another where people studying the blueprints and remains of Colonial Captial ships. Other teams where looking into the ground weapons such as Colonial tanks, APCs and small arms.

"The Akula what do we know?" inquired O'Neill, as the general's kept moving.

"From what we have been able to gather a Colonial Raptor jumped right into the side of the ship and caused the damage. They are still trying to figure out how long it will be able to repair her." Explained General Raj-Singh

"How many did we loss?" inquired General O'Neill

"Overall we loss eight on the Akula mostly from the explosion which happened when that ship jumped into our ship and we lost another seven, three Russian, two Chinese and two Americans in the failed attack on the Presidential bunker. We do have some reports that the Colonial Captured a Russian but others saying they were all dead. We will find out and launch a rescue if he is still alive," reported General Raj-Singh to the head of the Tau'ri military. He paused for a moment to study the older man, his hair was mostly grey now and he was at the age when most military man hung up their caps and put their uniforms in the closet.

The word was that O'Neill was planning to step down two years after the unveiling of the Stargate but that was before the Colonials. Everyone knew that officially, the next person in line to take the command of the Tau'ri was General Sheppard; he was Commander Pegasus Galaxy and was officially the number two. Unofficially it was known that General Shepard did not want the post on Earth, he was happy in Pegasus and he was more useful there because of his great relations with the local groups.

The next person who would take General O'Neill position would be General Samantha Carter currently the Head of the SGC. In most cases having the three most highest ranking officers in the Tau'ri military be all American would cause issues, but it was impossible to argue that those three plus the other members of SG1 and SGA1 deserved those positions. The question was who would come after General Carter, General Raj-Singh had hopped as General of Valhalla, he would someday rise to be the head of all Tau'ri military forces but that was no longer to be. The nuclear blast at Valhalla meant he would never rise higher then he would be right now.

"Too many but we took a lot of them down and we scared their leaders, maybe they will give in," said General O'Neill more to himself then to anyone else.

"General I feel that I have to thank you for what you did, without you I would be stripped of my rank and put in front of multiple hearings by every world government for failing to defend Valhalla." said General Raj-Singh as O'Neill shook his head.

"You don't have to thank, me I did what was right. You had warning of what five minutes at the most and in that time you raised the shield and protected everyone you could, including myself and my family." explained General O'Neill before lowering his head. "However I feel that I should inform you there is talk among some of the leaders of recalling you to a staff position on Earth or the prison world we have for the colonials and raising someone else to commander of Valhalla."

"I understand that sir," stated General Raj-Singh before taking a breath. "Actually sir, I was going to request a transfer to take command of the Shiva when it is finished."

O'Neill stopped and looked at the Indian General, who had just asked for command of his nations first battleship which had just started being built.

"It is the only way I can regain any creditability is to win it on the battlefield." Explained General Raj-Singh, it was a downgrade from his current spot but he was not going to keep that for long, he knew that. This would appease those who wanted his head but still allow him to fight.

"Officially that isn't my call but I will recommend it," stated O'Neill "The question is how long will this war go on? How long until the Colonials realize that they can't win?"

"All our estimates say it will be a long war, from all reports it appears that a more religious element is taking hold within the Colonial government and it is very hard to force those who hold religious convictions that they are wrong," stated General Raj-Singh. "It took us almost six years to convince all the different Arab nations, Israeli and all the Palestine's groups to agree to meet in Moscow for talks."

"And even to this day some radical fires a rocket at someone else or runs into a crowd with a knife." groaned O'Neill "I hate to say this but maybe this war is for the best, someone told me that the number of attacks have dropped. We are all united against a common enemy."

"Possible." confirmed General Raj-Singh "If we want this war to end fast we do have some options, but most can't be put into place until the fleet returns from Pegasus. The Yorktown will arrive in three hours but they have a ZPM and the others are still five days out."

"With the Yorktown we can take Nysa from the colonials and bring our Eagle's into the fight. From there they can hit every shipping lane in the colonies." Stated O'Neill "Then it is only a question of how will the colonial respond, we don't want to totally break them if we don't have too but we may have too. We could drop a Mark XVIII but I would rather not and what happens if they still keep fighting after we unleash that? How do we top that without destroying a star? Also how will the rest of the Galaxy take to our new weapons, we have to take that into consideration. They are watching us for sure, we have a lot of good will built up from everything we have done but that can disappear fast if we take it too far without a good reason."

"Sir, if you want we have studied the Hades' fire substance that one of their fighters tried to drop and we know how to reproduce it. In fact we made some improvements which will counter the traditional colonial methods to put it out," advised General Raj-Singh

"How did we do that so quickly?" inquired O'Neill

"Sir, what the Colonial call Hades' Fire is what our ancestors called Greek fire so everything in it can also be found on Earth." Explained General Raj-Singh "Once we ID everything in it, it was a simple process to recreate it and improve it."

"You mean make it even more deadly," stated O'Neill with a sigh. "I will report that to the Leadership, I wouldn't be surprised if we start dropping bombs of the stuff on the Colonials. The people back home are rightfully upset but it is too easy to take things too far. We have the moral high ground at the moment but that can disappear fast."

"I read they estimate expect that we have over a billion new recruits within a month," said General Raj-Singh "That is almost unbelievable."

"Not when you have so many nations as members of the Tau'ri, also once they began to offer tracks of land on the worlds we are going to colonize as payment then it shot up," explained O'Neill as General Raj-Singh nodded his head. "I would expect it to go higher as people finish school early and those who a still on the fence settle one way or another."

Offering land as payment for serving in a war which would likely seem like a good deal too many of his fellow citizens. While things had improved greatly because of new technology, there were still millions of people living in what were basically slums. The idea of living on land of their own would have made it a great deal too many and the government now had many worlds full of empty land waiting for settlement.

"Are they actually considering a ground invasion?" inquired General Raj-Singh

"That is one of the options on the table, but there is no way we can hold all 12 of their worlds but we have teams looking into how our ground forces would stand up against their ground forces." Explained O'Neill as he took a breath "We would likely drop a Mark XVIII first, to shook them into surrendering however if we have too we may have to get down in the mud."

"Hard thing is how to convince people that they have God or in their case Gods on their side that they can't win and it is time to give up," explained O'Neill with a shake of his head. "Tell me is everything ready for tomorrow?"

"Yes, sir." confirmed General Raj-Singh

**Captain Ian Taylor stood in the hanger of his Daedalus class Starship the Ark Royal, he like everyone else watched as a strange craft. **Which had just landed, it looked like an Engle only unlike modern Eagle fighters which was a single seater this one had two. The front was elongated and a single large fin replaced the two on the back of the Eagle. There was also an opening air intake in the front of the bird above the cockpit. The wings where pointed forward sharply, more so then the Eagle.

"So that is a Taita." stated Captain Taylor as the new fighter bomber named after a small East African Falcon landed. Painted along the side of the bird, was the Tau'ri flag but beside that was a painted in an anime style was image of the red haired woman dressed in black and red with a giant Scythe in her hands.

"Looks like nose art is making a come back," added Captain Taylor as ground crew rushed up to get the fighter bomber into its position. Once everything was shut down the pilot clearly a woman by her size stepped of her bird and looked around. She looked around the hanger before spotting the Captain. She moved toward him taking off her helmet as she did. Her eyes where a bold green and her short hair seamed unnaturally red, the flag on her arm marked her as American. Even so she snapped to attention before the British Captain.

"Captain, Lieutenant Rose Ryan of the United States Navy." said the Lieutenant "I brought my bird, Crescent Rose with me as ordered."

"Crescent Rose?" asked Taylor as he looked at the bird. "You named your aircraft."

"Yes, I did, sir." said Lieutenant Rose Ryan "Named it after a badass weapon from one of my favorite anime."

"I see, do you know why you are here?" inquired Taylor

"Not really." admitted Rose Ryan

"You will be with us until the Odyssey returns from Pegasus. If we have to start the operation before they arrive then you will have to deal with a bunch of British," explained Captain Taylor as he looked toward a side room where multiple armed guards stood around a single bomb.

"I am not sure why I am here." admitted Rose "My aircrafts model just got approved for production and cleared for operation but they never told me what this operation is. We only have five of them and two of them including this one were the prototypes."

"This is operation Black Rose and I hope we never have to actually go through with it." said Captain Taylor as he took a breath. "If the Colonials should launch an attack on Valhalla again, such as a WMD strike then we will hit them back with a Mark XVIII nuclear warhead."

"Mark XVIII I never heard of that type." Admitted Rose

"Until a few hours ago neither did I but I wish I never had." admitted Captain Taylor as he took a breath before telling the pilot what he had just learned. "The Mark XVIII is a gravity nuclear bomb which for example of its power if it went off over London it would whip out Hamburg Germany."

The Lieutenant Rose Ryan blinked those green eyes as she tried to process the information.

"Sorry, sir I was stationed in South Korea before being sent to Valhalla. I don't really know the distance between those cities." Admitted Rose

"Maybe a better example is if this bomb went off in Washington DC, as far south Charleston South Carolina, as far north as Montreal Canada and in the West Louisville Ky would be vaporized." explained Captain Taylor as her eyes widened, she had no idea how many people lived in that area but it would be millions.

"That is what, around a 500 miles radius or 1000 mile dimeter of destruction." exclaimed Rose as Captain Taylor nodded his head.

"And that is just the area which will be totally destroyed the actual area of destruction and damage could reach out three to four times that distance." added Captain Taylor "A single bomb could cause damage across entire land masses."

"My God." said Rose as she tried to imagine that damage. "We have built something like that?"

"It is the biggest nuclear bomb we have ever seen, not even in the Ancient or Asgard do they talk about a nuke that big. The fallout from this bomb alone could cause a nuclear winter equal to large scale nuclear war between the USA and the USSR in the Cold War." added Taylor "If the Colonials attack our civilians with a WMD then we will drop the bomb on them."

"Wait, you said this is a gravity bomb?" asked Rose "Why not a missile or just beam it down."

"I don't know for sure, but for the missile it has something to do with the bomb going at a certain speed for the best effect. Something to do with spinning parts that would be thrown off if they move too fast once released from the aircraft." explained Captain Taylor. "Also as for a beam, it can be done but we may not get close enough to deliver a the bomb easy, a ship is a big target but your bomber is fast enough to outrun the blast and yet not be a top target for the Colonials if we launch an attack."

"My bird is fast, it has a built in scram jet capable of going Mach 9, I can outrun anything we have at those speed but I can't turn unless I want the wings ripped off my bird," stated Rose "I will need all that speed to outrun something like that."

"You, will." Confirmed Captain Taylor

"I see do you have a list of targets?" inquired Lieutenant Ryan as Captain Taylor nodded his head before handing her the list. She scanned down the list only to lift her head up.

"Why are all these cities on it? Why not use this nuke on their shipyards in orbit?" added the pilot

"It wouldn't be effective in space," explained Captain Taylor "The bomb is so hot that it lights the very air on fire and makes the nuclear fireball even bigger. In space there is no atmosphere and that makes the bomb ineffective."

Rose looked down the list at the possible targets; her heart was dropping with each target list. Some sick mother in the target selection had taken the time to estimating how many people would die in each area. The number was in the hundreds of millions, a few even broke the billion mark. If ordered she could with a single bomb kill more people than the most bloody war in human history.

"Do the Colonials know we can do this?" inquired Rose

"In a way, we have warned them that we can and will respond if they launch a WMD strike on us with a force they can't match." explained Captain Taylor as he looked at the target list himself. He liked this idea even less then the pilot, it did not sit right in his view to kill so many so quickly but if the Colonials dropped another nuke or something else on the heads of the people of the Tau'ri then they knew that they would be repaid. If this bomb was to be used, it would hopefully force the hand of whoever was in charge of the Colonial government now.

"I hope we never have to use it but if we have too will you carry out the strike?" asked Captain Taylor, he knew he could order her to do it. Killing so many would weigh on even the strongest soul; he did not want to force the burden on anyone.

"Sir, I will do it but if I may I recommend we strike at target 4 before dropping it on something else." Added the pilot as Captain Taylor nodded, the first target was Caprica City itself because it would be a massive show of force and take out multiple key cities and locations. The next couple where similar targets but the 4th was different. All those cities where large in size and full of people, the 4th target would be just as damaging but in a less bloody way if such a way was possible with a weapon like that.

**Unknown to the Tau'ri the Colonial Battlestar Erebus was waiting for the third of four shipments form the isolated base of Nyx on the mostly barren ice world of Aquaria. **Down below them was the less populated world in all the 12 colonies of Kobol with almost 92% of the population living with a hundred miles of the only city of Heim. The largest military base on the planet was located on the other side of the planet and was one of the most isolated bases in the colonies.

A large craft moved into the hanger of the Erebus with only a few dozen meters separating the two ships. Once inside the hanger closed and atmosphere was pumped into the hanger allowing the Altas class transport to unload. Thanks to the massive legs on the Altas transports, it was able to use the elevators built into the belly of the transport to lower the goods. The Altas transports was designed to carry troops and equipment into battle, it could handle up to six T-35 Pallas tanks but generally it carried no more than four at any one time. In this case they carried something far more deadly then tanks. What came down from the lifts where metal cases sitting on pallets, each pallet had two cases across and was six cases high.

"Sir, what is in these things?" asked a Colonial officer to the Admiral who was watching over the unloading.

"Believe me, son you don't want to know," said the Admiral as he watched a pallet full of VX poison gas, moved past him. The deadly nerve agent was among the most deadly gas known to man and as far as the public knew, it had been removed from colonial stockpiles. That was a lie; in truth, the colonial military had kept some it had proven too useful in the last war. While it was useless against the Cylons who didn't need to breathe the gas had been used against a small group of colonial citizens who had turned against humanity and was actively working for the enemies of humanity. Their town had been destroyed in a single night using the gas, with so much death no one noticed a small town disappearing overnight. The gas had killed the enemies of humanity while leaving the city intact and after a quick cleaning free to be reclaimed by turn humans. There were more pallets with different chemical weapons but none as deadly as the VX gas.

**Lieutenant Kara Thrace sat inside another Raptor; her emergency locator beacon had brought a rescue Raptor to her. **It had only taken a few calls to command to get her back on the journey to wherever she was going. The Raptor flew over the mountains and valleys, which covered most of Sagittaron as it headed toward its destination. Kara still had no idea where that was but soon the Raptor touched down. She waited for the copilot to open the side door before she stepped out onto what appeared to be small landing pad. The concrete of the pad was old with faded paint marking the landing area and weed growing out of cracks in it. Multiple old hangers where in the distance and a half torn up runway sat between her and those buildings.

"What the frak?" asked Kara as a civilian truck rolled up to the Raptor, the man behind the wheel was in an army uniform which told her she wasn't part of some joke. Without saying a word she got into the front seat and they headed off toward the oldest looking hanger.

"Follow me," said the solider as he parked the truck and headed toward the a rust covered door. When he opened it and Kara stepped into the hanger she instantly knew that the building was far from old. She found herself standing in what appeared to be an airlock of some kind with two armed marines in full combat gear guarding another door. A large window on one side of the room showed two more marines who sat behind a desk.

"Lieutenant Kara Thrace?" asked one of the guards in the room with her.

"Yes." said Kara as she ran off her ID number before the man could ask. For a moment the man said nothing as he compared a her to a file photo.

"Alright you are cleared to enter," confirmed the guard as one of the two guards in the side room opened pressed a button and the door opened up. What she found inside would have put even the newest hangers to shame. The walls where painted white, even the concreate was painted white. Computers where everywhere and the dark shapes of computer servers lined the far wall. Multiple man and women walked around looking down at hand held computers and clipboards. Guards stood at different locations all of them where armed and judging from the patch on one of their arms they were members of Ares' Spears one of the elite special forces of the Colonial military.

"If they have fraken commandos doing guard duty this must be one important place," said Kara as alarms began to go off. At first she had no idea what was going on but since no one was panicking she didn't. To her amazement part of the floor opened up and then the most beautiful thing, she had ever seen rose up from the ground on a platform. It had all the familiar lines that she was used to, but they were even finer and smother. Sitting there before her was a Viper, but not one she had ever seen before, maybe to the untrained eye they would not have noticed but she did. The two short wings where slightly longer and pulled back at a sharper angle. The holes for the cannons where in the wrong place and the cockpit window was slightly more angler.

"So what do you think of her?" asked a voice to her right as a woman dressed in civilian cloths with a white lab coat over it all.

"She looks beautiful, a new Viper?" asked Kara

"Yes, the Viper Mark VIII." said the Doctor as she offered her hand. "By the way my name is Doctor Kader and I am in charge of this program."

"Why am I here?" inquired Kara

"You have gone up against the Tau'ri more than any other pilot, you even shot one down." explained the Doctor "Any insights you can give us would be help. We are just happy you made it to us, your Raptor was shot down by the Tau'ri ship."

"We were not shot down." answered Kara as the Doctor looked at her. "We jumped right into it."

"What?" asked Doctor Kader

"You don't know, I thought you would have known someone must have seen it beside me." Said Kara

"What are you talking about?" asked Doctor Kader

"The Fraken, Tau'ri they have whole ships which can turn invisible." explained Kara as Doctor Kader's eyes widened.

"I see." said Doctor Kader "That is worry some, I assume you told the officers when you were debriefed."

"I did but that right in the middle of telling them came word of the President's speech." explained Kara "Luckily the president made it."

"We are lucky, last I heard he is alive and will broadcast to the colonies in a few hours," confirmed Doctor Kadar "Now would you tell me what you think about our new bird."

Kara moved toward the Mark VIII, she ran her hand across the metal skin of the bird. As she looked at the bird more differences came into view, by the time Doctor Kader and a small group of others came up to her had some questions and some ideas to share.

"How many cannon shells does she have?" inquired Kara

"The standard load, we didn't focus on that." admitted Doctor Kader "It however can carry six missiles instead of four and its range has increased. It also has more thrusters making the turns faster and tighter."

"All good, but next to useless against the Tau'ri." stated Kara as the people who designed the Viper glared at her. "Those traitorous cousins of ours focus on missiles and theirs out range ours and seam to be above everything we have. Unless you have better missiles somewhere around here?"

"We don't." admitted Doctor Kader "This bird was designed to go up against Cylon raiders. Do you have any recommendations."

"I do." admitted Kara before grinning. "How many of you have been in a bar fight?"

The doctors shared a glance telling the hard drinking pilot that the answer was no.

"Now, the key to any fight is to know your enemy, if you fight a man with a drunk man with gun and you have a broken bottle you need to know the advantages each have. He can shot you before you reach him. The Tau'ri have missiles which outrange ours but their birds don't seam to be able to turn like ours." stated Kara "To put it simply they have a gun and we have knives, we need to get close enough to kill them."

"Well missiles will mean we don't have to get as close." said an engineer

"True, but if the Tau'ri have built fighters around missiles then they likely have a lot of technology to counter missiles." said Doctor Kader "Guns are the answers, so we need to get close."

"Do you think you can maybe put a could add some of those missile counter measure pods on the bird and maybe add two more gun pods?" inquired Kara "Throw enough bullets and you will hit something."

**The room was made out of a bare concrete with a harsh white light coming from a bare light bulb which hung from the ceiling. **Along one wall was a mirror, which was actually a one way mirror, beside the door was a video camera siting on a tripod. The only other items in the room were two chairs and a table, a large metal hook was screwed into the wall.

Sitting in one of those was Senior Sargent Adrik Drugov of the Russian Spetsnazs, his arm was in a sling and a large amount of wrappings marked the place where the colonials had done surgery to remove bullet fragments from his shoulder. The door flung open as two men, both dressed in colonial navy blue uniforms entered. One of them was armed with a sub machine gun of some kind hanging from a shoulder strap. He stayed by the door his hands resting on the gun ready to bring it up within moments. The other one appeared to be in a more dress uniform walked up to him and sat across from him.

"Now, I come to understand that aside from your name, rank and serial number you are refusing to give the integrators nothing," said the man as he sat down across from Sargent Drugov. "Now as your lawyer I recommend you stop that once unless the worse happens."

For the longest time Senior Sargent Drugov looked at the man before looking away with a board look on his face.

"Listen your government is giving you a chance, if you repent what you have done, confirm that the Tau'ri are under colonial law and tell them everything they want to know about the Tau'ri. You will be granted your semi-freedom." Said the lawyer "If you don't talk then you will be treated as any terrorist would under colonial law, you will be put to death."

Adrik Drugov shrugged but remained quiet.

"Do you not understand, since the courts ruled that Earth is a protectorate of the Colonial Government you and everyone else can be considered not Prisoners of War but as rebels and terrorist and they can be killed on the spot?" snapped the lawyer. "They can do whatever they want to you, they can hang you up on that hook and beat you until you are nothing but mush or they can put a bullet between your eyes. They will be worse to you because you attempted to assassinate the elected president of the 12 colonies, which by law is your president too."

"Can't be helped." Said Sargent Drugov before looking at the mirror and at whoever was standing behind it watching.

"You must realize that you can't win this war, we want to save lives and we need your help." stated the lawyer. "There are 12 worlds of us and only one of you, we will win in the end."

"I will help you." Said Sargent Drugov as the lawyer's eyes widened and his mouth widened into a huge smile. "I will tell you how fucked you are."

"What?" asked the stunned lawyer

"To put it in a way you all will understand, you are fraken idiots. You attacked the most powerful and most advanced group in two galaxies. You have no idea what sort of hell you unleashed what you have experienced is only the tip of the spear more and far worse is coming for you and we will not rest. We have been fighting against ourselves for a very long time and now we are more willing to dedicate all our time to sending you back to the stone age." stated Sargent Drugov with a grin which gave the truth to his word. "You have no idea what real war is, but you will learn soon and when this is all over it will be you who break not us. So do whatever you want to me, it will not change your fate. You will lose and lose badly."

"We shall see." said the lawyer defiantly.

"Yes, we shall see," confirmed Sargent Drugov as the lawyer stormed out of the room. Seconds later two men rushed in pushed the table aside while a third came in with a large bucket of ice water.

"You could have done this the easy way," stated one of his soon to be Colonial guards.

"I am Spetsnaz we don't do anything the easy way, do your worse it will be like being back in training again." Said Sargent Drugov as the Colonial intelligence officer shoved his face into the ice cold water.


	43. Chapter 43

**Chapter 43 Welcome to Valhalla**

A vortex of energy ripped apart the black void of space, within seconds of the vortex forming a ship exited the vortex and active sub light engines as the rip in space closed. The ship was the first of its kind and had just crossed the void between galaxies at almost unbelievable speeds thanks to the power of a stolen ZPM. The ship was the first carrier of the Tau'ri the USS Yorktown and as its powerful sub light engines pushed it forward it received and automatic challenge from the Tau'ri defense satellites which surrounded Valhalla. The computer systems automatically sent the friendly response and the defense satellites deactivate their lock but remained ready until the second layer of confirmation was sent by the ships personal.

"Welcome back to Valhalla, Yorktown." said the British Admiral on the Britannia as the carrier pasted by the battleship that formed the current heart of the defense of the world. There was only six battleships and only one carrier in the entire Tau'ri force, three of those battleships and a large portion of the fleet where already past the half waypoint in the cross Galaxy trip and would arrive within five days. The only other battleship, the Russian Kursk was current protecting Earth.

"Thanks, wish we hadn't had to come back because of a war here," answered the Air Force General in charge of the Yorktown. The ship glided past a line of Daedalus class battle cruiser and the smaller Galahad class destroyers. Space out between the ships where the massive Kusanagi class defense satellites. The Yorktown took its position over the damaged world and prepared to unload its cargo.

They had taken onboard the normal group of people who would be reassigned back to either Earth or Valhalla after deployment in Pegasus, that was normal for any ship traveling back and forth between galaxies. They did however have some special cargo, first the ZPM which was taken out of the ships power source and beamed down to the surface. The last two pieces of cargo required different transport arrangements.

**The sound of footsteps caused the Colonials onboard the Yorktown to look toward the door of their for the lack of a better term cell.** The room was not a cell the Tau'ri claimed but the six people where confined in there. The only thing that made it livable was that the space was originally designed for lower ranking officers so they each had a bed, there was a small table and a full bathroom. They also had a TV and computer but the computer was turned off and the selection on the TV had been limited. No news broadcasts and nothing that could be seen as helpful in any way to understand the Tau'ri. The six colonials, three of them where military officers, two scientists and a priestess had to spend their time in the room watching movies and TV shows there was nothing else for them to do.

They expected the door to open but then the sound of a bolt being pulled back on a gun came through the door.

"The Godsless killers are here." stated Priestess Adrianna as they looked toward the door, but the door never opened instead the sound of the door across the hall opening filled the air.

**Across the hall from the Colonials in the Officers Quarters sat a one of the monsters, which disproved everything Priestess Adrianna believed in, Todd**. The Wraith was sitting in a chair, which was not to his liking, it wasn't that it was a bad chair for leaning over the desk working, but it didn't recline or have the padding he had come to enjoy. He was doing something that would have caused most humans to be amazed, he was reading a hard backed book, the leather spin cracking a bit as he turned the page.

"Hmm…" said Todd to himself as he became more engrossed in the story before him. Something that would have seemed unimaginable to the humans the Wraiths had feed on since the fall of the Ancients was that they each had their own personalities and habits like any humans did.

Todd knew a Wraith Commander who would collect the flags and banners from the human factions he feed upon. More than a few collected weapons that they had taken from the dead and there was even a Queen who would make captured tailors make a dress or another outfit for her. If she liked it should would kill the human quickly if she hated it slowly. Story was that one tailor impressed her so much she not only let him live but protected him and his family from any more Wraith attacks. He was odd in that way too, only instead of weapons, flags and clothing he collected books. He had over 1,500 books taken from almost every world in the galaxy he even had some rare Ancient Paper books.

Since he had a few days to kill before reaching Colonial Space, so he was enjoying one of his new favorite's, a gift from a Tau'ri leader on Earth who did not realize he was a Wraith before sending the Gift.

"Whoever wrote this is more blood thirsty then a Wraith." stated Todd as he turned the page in a Clash of Kings by George RR Martin. The sound of the door opening caused him to look up from his book. In the doorway stood a Tau'ri marine dressed in full body armor including chest piece with a pump shotgun in his hands. The other was an officer also in full body armor minus the helmet with a pistol on his belt.

"You ready?" inquired the officer.

"I am ready to begin," answered Todd as he closed his book and picked up his supplies, which sat in a large duffle bag by the door. He strapped on his own belt, which held his side arm plus other items before picking up the book and placed it in the bag. With that, he walked out and headed toward the hanger where an Owl would be waiting to take him to his target.

**The sound of the Tau'ri leaving with someone else caused the Colonials to look at each other.**

"Was there someone else they brought with us?" inquired Jenny Oldstone; she knew that the Wraith Todd had come. She knew this because she being a humanoid Cylon had gladly helped the human eating alien by giving him all the information he could ever want on the Colonials.

"I don't know," answered Lee Adama, ten minutes later two more pairs of footsteps caused the colonials to look toward the door. When it opened, two men dressed in standard uniforms but no visible weapons aside from side arms where in the door.

"Grab your things and follow me," ordered the higher-ranking officer as the colonials stood up and followed them out.

"Where are you taking us?" inquired Karl "We can't be back yet."

"You would be surprise what we can do." came the answer of the guard who was walking behind them. They were led through the ship until they reached one of the hangers only to find a waiting Owl.

"What happened to our Raptor and my Viper?" inquired Lee

"They are ours now." answered the officer "You should be thankful we aren't considering you POWs and sending you to join the few thousand we currently hold."

"You hold that many?" inquired Priestess Adrianna

"Actually considering that you sent 12 ships and some of them where battlestars we didn't take many prisoners." stated the officer "We weren't in a prisoner taking mood when you nuked our world. I heard that the Eagles hunted down anyone who escaped and they didn't last long."

"We had nothing to do with that." defended Sharon

"You're government did," snapped the officer as the edge of a world appeared out of the front of the hanger. They could see straight into space thanks to the shield which held in the atmosphere. "All because you believe it to be some holy world or whatever."

"Kobol?" inquired Priestess Adrianna as she looked at the blue green world "Is that Kobol?"

"That is Valhalla," corrected the officer "Now get onboard the Owl."

The priestess had to be pushed in the back to move but she was soon onboard the owl which took off and headed out into space. The pilots where slightly annoyed to be stuck on transport duty but the higher ranking officers didn't want to show the Colonials that they had beaming technology, so the Owl was the only way. The Owl banked toward the planet diving into the atmosphere causing the ship to shake a bit as it went. When it finally leveled out it had a short journey as it flew past the destruction caused by the nuclear blast and toward the largest city on Valhalla, Celin.

The Owl made a perfect landing on one of the landing pads Command tower, once the engines stopped the back ramp was lowered to show more guards only these where armed.

"Come with us, you will be staying here until you are transported back to your people tomorrow night." Stated the head guard a tall man who looked to have been in more than his share of bar fights. For the colonials they could not help but look around at the city which was lied out before them, while it wasn't the equal of Atlantis it was close and it had Atlantis beat when it came to pure size.

Priest Adrianna fell to her knees and raised her hands to the sky.

"Oh, Lords of Kobol bless me your humble servant who has returned to your holly world." Prayed the Priestess as she closed her eyes and moved to kiss the ground. One of the guards moved forward and in a case of near perfect timing placed his dirty grey stained boat between the lips of the priestess and the ground. She recoiled, her lips stained grey from dirt which covered the boot.

"Screw your Lords of Kobol lady, they have no place here after what you did." cursed the guard before spitting in front of the priestess "Maybe this will cause you to wake up but you just kissed the ash of thousands of people who died in nuclear fire caused by you."

"Sergeant that is enough, you are dismissed." ordered the higher-ranking officer as the sergeant moved off.

"How rude," cursed the Priestess Adrianna as the officer pointed over his shoulder toward a bare stretch of land which spread out. Among that stretch of land was the remains of buildings both great and small, fallen trees could be seen.

"Personally lady I would throw you and all you colonials SOBs off this tower just because I could but I have my orders and that is to keep you safe until the Nox come to take you to that backwater piss place of a place you call the 12 colonies of Kobol." said the officer. "If I wanted to I could step aside and that some of the people who are now homeless and lost love ones because of you to rip you apart. I could even record it and put it on Youtube and get millions of likes. I wouldn't get in trouble worse than a slap on the wrist, now stand up shut up or I will have one of my soldiers shot you while you are "attempting" to steal a weapon."

That caused the entire group of colonials to shut up and follow the Tau'ri officers down to their new holding area.

**Once again, the space on the edge of Valhalla ripped open up causing every ship assigned to protect the world to auto target the ship. **Seconds after the computers identified the ship and the crew calmed down, the ship was purple in color and shaped like a rounded leaf with blue thrusters coming out of the back. The ship was small only about the size of a condor bomber, it past gracefully through the Tau'ri defense line which had been thickened. Swarms of Eagle fighters filled the space above Valhalla to protect it from an other attack.

The ship sailed gracefully down through the sky before coming to a landing near the base of the command tower. Standing there waiting for the arrival of the delegation was General O'Neill. He took a breath as a door opened in the side of the ship and a group of ten figures both men and women with a faint grey skin but with grass like hair with leaves and even branches in their hair.

General O'Neill walked forward and extended his hand to the only other known living member race of the great alliance races, the Nox.

"Welcome to Valhalla, Antheas." greeted O'Neill to the Nox he had meet all those years ago when he was still the leader of SG1.

"Thank you for having us O'Neill, I only wish we hadn't come to this world to honor your dead." Explained Antheas

"It is still nice of you to come," said General O'Neill as he looked at the other delegation, eight of them where younger looking, almost as if they were children but due to the way the Nox aged they could have been older then he was. The other one was a female he had never seen before but unlike the others she wore different clothing, she had a vest of what looked to be weaved grass and a long skirt made in a similar way. She carried a large staff which looked like a broken branch but it was still alive with leaves of different colors growing out of it. "Are you sure you want to travel to the Colonies after this?"

"I will, that is why I brought the ship instead of traveling by the Stargate," explained Antheas "We want to open talks between you and these Colonials, you are both young and sometimes it is up to the older race to step in and try to settle the fight."

"I understand your point, but I don't think our people will be willing to accept much less than the demands we already gave them and they refused." explained O'Neill as Antheas turned and looked over his shoulder. He could see the massive destruction which was caused by the Colonial nuke.

"And we understand that, we have monitored what you have done so far and beside bringing a Wraith to this fight you have held back admittedly." stated Antheas as O'Neill nodded his head.

"We are trying to scare them into surrendering," explained O'Neill, kind of surprised that the Nox knew about Todd but knowing how advanced the Nox where it could explain how they had breached the Tau'ri computer network. "And compare that to what they have done?"

"True, but it doesn't make it right and what about the ZPMs you took?" inquired Antheas

"The ZPMs are dangerous in the wrong hands and we didn't take them until after the attack." Countered O'Neill

"Will you give them back after this is all done?" inquired Antheas, the look on O'Neill's face told the answer. "I thought not and they are dangerous if they are in the wrong hands, a ZPM going off could destroy an entire star system. Either way I will try to bring peace between you and these Colonials."

"I wish you luck." Said General O'Neill

**Meanwhile on Tauron a Colonial Raptor came in for a landing at the main military base located across a wide but slow moving river from the Capital of Tauron, Hypatia. **President Richard Adar got out of the Raptor and instantly got into a normal looking SUV to make the journey across the bridge. The bridge itself was considered a marvel when it was made over a hundred years ago but today it was dated with only four lanes of traffic and made mostly with stone pillars which held the steel cables which held the roadway up.

The main reason why it was kept was that during the dark days of the Cylon war when the city was surrounded the only lifeline into the city was across the bridge. Thousands of trucks and even people carrying supplies on their backs had kept the city from falling. Yes, the hero hill where the soldiers made their stand against the Cylons and was important since if the Cylons had taken the hill they could have directed long-range artillery onto the bridge but without the bridge those men would have had nothing to fight with.

The SUV passed into the heart of the old city, here the old stone buildings with large colonnades still held strong. The road formed a Y shape as the bridge road and the river road joined together into the main street of the city, here the Tauron showed its old military history. The road here where in ancient days before Tauron joined the colonies huge military parades where held so the road here was six lanes and reinforced for tanks to roll down with ease.

At the junction a large statue of the patron God of Tauron, the statue itself was white marble however the artiest had gone all out. Over the statue, he had made actual bronze armor, which glanced in the sun. Ares stood in the full armor with a sword hanging on his hip, he held a shield in one hand and a spear raised high, flapping off that spear was the Tauron war banner. The Lords of Kobol face was screaming in an endless war scream as his helmet sat on top of his head.

The President's SUV made a turn and entered the underground parking area for his destination. With that done, he walked past war flags from different points in Colonial history before entering a large hall. The President bowed his head for a moment as he entered the temple of Ares. He like everyone else entering the building had to walk down a long hall full of different sets of armor somewhere recreations of what the Lord of Kobol wore on Kobol while others where the modern uniforms of the Colonial Military.

When he entered the main hall, he found that just like all the other temples there was one massive statue of the Lord of Kobol which filled the hall. A podium had been set up for him and aside from a few selected members of the press and the Priests of Ares, the room was all but empty. The only other people where Mr. Spiros and a handful of his friends and family. Adar stopped as he saw Admiral Cain standing beside Mr. Spiros with a smile on her face and to his amazement; she was not in uniform and was instead dressed in a Tauron style business suit.

On the surface, there was no real difference between a Tauron style suit and a standard suit, but under the surface, there was a two major differences. First the Tauron style it was perfectly normal if not expected for a women to where the same suit as a man, there was nothing along the lines of a pants suit on Tauron. That was minor difference and not really of note but the second and more important thing was that a Tauron style suit had two built in holsters for weapons either knives, pistols and even sub machine guns could all be carried comfortable.

"President Adar how are you doing today?" inquired Admiral Cain with a grin which caused the President's heart to drop.

"What are you doing here?" inquired Adar

"I am not surprised that you didn't hear considering the attempted assassination by our cousins but Cain here has resigned from the military and will be becoming our new Secretary of Defense in our joint government." Said the soon to be Vice President Mr. Spiros "The Quorum has already agreed to her assuming the job and considering her military experience with the Tau'ri she will most helpful."

Adar bit his tongue and forced a smile.

"Yes, she has an unique outlook which will be most welcomed." lied Adar as he felt like punching his soon to be Vice President. "Now shall we begin?"

The President nodded as he turned toward the news reporters who began to film the event, however while this was being documented it was not going out on the wireless live. That would be the new normal, they would give a speech or public appearance and it would not be broadcasted until hours after the event had ended. That was so that the Tau'ri could not locate the president and other high-ranking officers with ease and it had worked well during the Cylon war. Adar stood back and watched as a man who had supported his main rival in the last election was sworn in as his Vice President.

With that done the new Vice President of the 12 Colonies of Kobol moved toward the podium, it was traditional when swearing in a new President and Vice President for the Vice President to give a short speech before the President gave one.

"My Brothers and Sisters in faith we have faced a storm like no other since the great exodus from Kobol all those years ago. We stand before a force who want to undermined what we know to be true and replace it with lies. However just like how Ares whose temple we are gathered in now never gave up when he fought Thor on the fields of Kobol we will never give up." started Mr. Spiros as the older man's voice grew even stronger. "We will carry an burden, we will pay any price and we will not compromise, Kobol belongs to its children and our cousins must see the error in their ways and return to the proper path. We will shine a light on the lies of the Tau'ri and retake the home world of all humanity, Kobol before taking Earth. So say us all."

"So say us all," said President Adar before whispering under his breath. "Oh…frak me what have I done?"

**Five hours after the swearing in of the new Vice President of the 12 colonies of Kobol a cloaked Owl passed over the Temple of Ares and the same spot that he had been sworn in at. **The owl left the city behind and headed toward a group of apartment complexes, which sat on the outside of the city near the ring of hills which surrounded the city. The two Isreali pilots glared at the Nazi flag flying from one of the hills but kept going until they reached their target building.

"Here we go." stated the commander of the Israeli strike team as the cloaked Owl came to a hover over the flat roof of the apartment complex. The moment the back ramp opened the Owl de cloaked and the eight-man strike team rushes out and moved toward the roof entrees. There was no alarm so the eight-man team rushed down five floors before coming to the floor that they wanted.

Since it was pass midnight the hallway of the apartment complex was empty, it was still elite and looked like any other upper scale hotel floor. A generic carpeted hallway with lights every couple of feet. The assault team moved down the hall until they reached their target, normally they would have cracked the lock without making much if any noise however the plan was for them to be seen.

"Execute." ordered the commander as one of his men pointed a shotgun at the lock and with a load bust the lock was gone. Seconds later they tossed in flashbangs which would wake the dead, four of the men stormed into the apartment while the other four covered the hallway. A few heads appeared in their doorways only to duck back inside when they saw armed men in the wall way.

The Israelis knew that soon cops would be on their way if not military if someone was smart enough to report that Tau'ri forces where there. It wouldn't matter as the four men came out with a half dressed women with a bag over her head and a her hands bound. They rushed her toward the staircase, no one came out to stop them and they moved up toward the waiting Owl. They made it to the owl just as police series began to be heard in the distance.

The Owl took off and headed out into space as the Israeli commander looked toward their prisoner.

"Sailboat." said the Israeli

"Fire." answered the prisoner as the Commander nodded his head before taking off the hood and undoing the restraints.

"Sorry about that, but we had to make it look good." said the Commander to the humanoid cylon he had been sent to grab.

"That is ok." Stated D'Anna Biers who had become famous across the colonies for filming the first encounter between the Pegegus battle group and the Ark Royal. "My Brothers and Sisters never explained why you needed me."

"From my understanding they want you to be a reporter," explained the Israeli commander as the owl left Tauron behind and moved into the void of space. "We are going to hold a ceremony remembering the dead in the nuclear strike and they want someone the Colonials would trust to broadcast it back."

"I see, there are a lot of people who don't believe there was an attack," explained D'Anna "The Military never got a message from a single ship or even a Raptor back from Valhalla."

"Well lets just say our Eagle pilots went out hunting for anyone who made it off and they did their job very well." Explained the Israeli with a laugh, the Eagle fighter by far the most common spacecraft on Valhalla didn't have the range to reach the 12 colonies of Kobol but they had swarmed the area in-between hunting down those who had brought death to their home. Add on to that, that most of space was covered by satellites capable of detecting ships meant that the task was easy and the small corridor that the Colonial fleet had used to reach Valhalla had come flood with warships made their hunting easy.

**In the same star system, the sun was rising over Caprica City as the newly appointed Secretary of Defense Helena Cain was arranging her new desk located in what remained of Department of Defense. **Five Tau'ri missiles had hit the building and they were still in the process of rebuilding the repairing what had been done.

Moments after being sworn in she had journeyed to assume her post. As the Secretary of Defense, she was fourth in line for the Presidency behind the Vice President and the Secretary of State. In truth, the importance of the Secretary of State had lost most of its power after the unification of the colonies and we mostly used to settle disputes between different colonies. It had only regained importance after contact of with the Tau'ri. In pure military terms, she as Secretary of Defense had more power then the Secretary of State.

Helena carefully lied one of her favorite knives, one taken from the battlefield of Tauron the blade was still stained from the where some unknown colonial solider had somehow pierced the armor of a Cylon. The oil, which made up the blood of the Cylon had stained it forever. A knock at the door caused her to lift her eye toward the door.

"Enter." ordered Cain a Marine General entered the office and snapped to attention. "At ease."

"You summoned us, Secretary Cain." said the General the pain of having to take orders from a women he hated. Cain contained a smile; she could not help but think about what those higher-ranking desk pushers who had never seen combat was saying about having to take orders from her.

"I did." Confirmed Cain "General, tell me how many combat ready divisions do we have capable of carrying out a forced landing on enemy held ground?"

"Secretary that is something we don't practice much, we always assume that landing a force of any large size would have support from local forces." explained the General "We always assumed that we would be landing behind the lines and moving forward to take on the Cylons. We only carried out five landings behind the lines during the Cylon war and we never thought we would have to attack…"

"General, I didn't ask for excuses I want an answer to my question how many combat ready divisions do you have trained to carry out a forced landing." Inquired Cain

"Five divisions, four infantry and one armored division." answered the General "In total, around 60,000 men."

"Should be enough," stated Cain as she moved toward a map which she had set up on the sidewall; it was a map of Kobol. "General have you studied this map?"

"I have and we can't take Kobol with only five divisions," stated the General

"I think we can, look the Tau'ri have us outnumbered on the ground but most of their forces take the form of fighters and our air forces launched from their ships will clear the sky for your forces. We estimate that their military forces that are just ground forces are only around nine divisions spread out across the world," stated Cain before pulling a knife and pointing to a large bridge which linked the two landmasses. "Also four of those divisions are on this smaller narrow landmass, we cut the bridge and they can't move to take on our forces. Your force can make a beach head and hold until our reinforcements arrive."

"Ma'am, we don't know how much forces the Tau'ri have moved into position since the war started and if our forces can't own the space above our marine's heads we are as good as dead." Stated the General

"And I am sure our forces gave their space forces a beating or how else could we have hit their cities on the ground with a nuke." Stated Cain "If we strike fast we can claim Kobol before Tau'ri reinforcements arrive. General Draw up plans I want them on my desk within a week. Also we need more detailed map, order more recon flights to study Kobol, the more detailed maps the easier this assault will be. I read that we have a Tau'ri prisoner."

"That is correct." confirmed the General before pausing for a moment. "We are trying to get information out of him but he is proving to be more troublesome then we expected but we have only just started."

"Keep me inform." Ordered Cain

**At that same moment a Colonial Marine in an undisclosed location on Caprica was using Senior Sargent Adrik Drugov had his head pulled out of the ice water. **There were four Colonials in the room with the single Russian Spetsnaz, they had been shoving his head in and out of ice water for the past few hours waiting for him to talk, yet to the colonial amazement, he said nothing.

"Talk." ordered the head of the Colonial intelligence team. "Talk damn you tell us everything."

"Sing." ordered another Colonial

To his and the other Colonial amazement Drugov began to speak, but it was in words they couldn't understand. At first they did not understand then they realized that he was in fact he was singing. The Colonials just stood there stunned as Drugov sung in his native Russian. He was about half way through his song before a Colonial punched him so hard that he and his chair fell to the ground.

"You told me to sing, you must not a fan of Katyusha?" inquired Drugov with a laugh. He remembered how his grandparents would listen to that song when he was a little boy. "My grandfather loved the song, he used to listen to it on the long march to Berlin in World War II."

"We want you to tell us everything about the Tau'ri!" snapped the head integrator as another got the Russian up and placed the chair he was sitting on against the wall. "Talk."

"No." answered Drugov as one of the colonials who had a body which would put a body builder to shame punched him hard in the stomach. To the amazement of the Colonials Drugov didn't even flinch from the blow. Another blow had the same effect but on the third blow, everything changed. At the last moment, Drugov used his foot to push himself to one side falling to the ground avoiding the blow. That would not have been much of an issue, expect for the solid wall behind him. The colonial guard punched a solid concreate wall instead of a the Russian. The effects was horrible as the sound of snapping bones filled the air, blood began to pour out of the guards arm as white bone pieced out of his skin.

"MY GODS!" yelled the guard as he looked at the bloody bone sticking out his forearm.

"Can I get the real team in here please?" inquired Drugov calmly to the other wide-eyed Colonials. "As the Americans say, I am tired of dealing with the JV, bring on the Varsity."

**Well I hope you liked this chapter, I wish to say Happy Fourth of July to my readers in the United States. Now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	44. Chapter 44

**Chapter 44 Horrors of the Past**

The morning sky was glomming with overcast and had a look of rain but all the reports said it was not going to rain. Maybe it was an act of God but the weather seamed right considering what was going to happen on the fields of Valhalla. General Raj-Singh was once again standing in front of the Stargate in his dress uniform; in fact the same guards which had stood guard over the arrival of the Mark XVIII once again stood guard. A long line of black SUVs stood on the far edge of the paved area, which surrounded the Stargate. The four forts, which would be the first line of defense against something coming through the gate and the last line of defense to hold the gate loomed over the field full of flag poles which flew every nation which was a member of the Tau'ri. All those flags where currently at half-staff in mourning of the dead. The gate activated as a single figure dressed in American air force blue uniform walked out and up to him past the armor guard who were dressed in their nations dress uniform.

"General Carter." greeted General Raj-Singh as he snapped to attention; the General returned the salute crispy.

"So you ready for this?" inquired General Carter "Because they are right behind me."

"Yes, Ma'am the area has been cleared of radiation thanks to those Asgard cleaning energy beams," confirmed General Raj-Singh "I guess I shouldn't be surprised considering how things along those lines cleaned up areas on Earth."

"I am with you there." confirmed the head of the Stargate Command she looked toward the mass of press which was gathering in the distance to watch the arrival. They did not have to wait long the gate reactive a few moments after the gate opened multiple figures walked through the gate. It was a strange mix of people, most of them where either dressed in suits but there where others in in robes. In total there was over fifty people. There was at least one representative from every member nation of the Tau'ri, some of them where the elected leaders of their nation but others where Vice Presidents or high-ranking members of their home government. All these men and women had come to take part in the ceremony but the group of people who had first asked to come made up the core of the party. The honor guard snapped to attention as the figures past, both Generals snapped to attention. The first one to reach the two generals was the President of United States.

"Generals allow me to introduce you to some of the holiest men and women on Earth." Said the American President as both Generals turned to see the eleven holy men and one holy women who had come from Earth. There was representatives from every major Earth religions, there was the current Dalai Lama standing next to the current Pope. A rabbi from Jerusalem was standing beside an Imam from Mecca, there was also the Patriarch from the orthodox church in Moscow and a woman bishop from the Church of England. There was also religious leaders from different Protestant dominations, along with Hinduism, Buddhism and Shintoism.

"Generals thank you for having us here today," said the Pope in broken English as a priest dressed in black robes stood behind him. The Pope was unique among the religious leaders because he was a leader of his own nation in the Holy Sea. The Holy Sea better known as the Vatican had been offered to join the Tau'ri but had refused and had instead taken the role as an observer member of the Tau'ri in order to remain religious independent.

"It is our honor to have you all here," said General Carter

"Shall we get going, we have vehicles ready," offered General Raj-Singh as they nodded, the SUVs rolled toward them. The multiple camera crews filmed the arrival as the holy men and women along with the leaders or high ranking representatives from the nations moved past an honor guard made armed forces from every nation. Not many of the news people focused on the Stargate activing again, their audience was the people on Earth and Valhalla, not the men and women in different looking business suits which looked dated to the eyes of the Tau'ri.

"Jonas." said General Carter as she shook the hand of her old friend before pulling him into a hug.

"Sam." said Jonas Quin a former member of SG1 and one of the five member governing council of Langara. "I want to add my own personal feelings for the lost of life, the outpouring of grief on the streets of Langara was almost unbelievable. People were crying in the streets when they saw the news. Anything you need we are ready to help."

"Same thing happened on Earth," explained Carter "The whole world united in grief and then anger."

"Well no matter what happens with the vote you will have us in your corner." stated Jonas with a smile. "Our world owes yours a debt unlike most others, you focused on rebuilding our world after the ORI take over brought the united government you helped forge."

"It was our pleasure," said General Carter as she remembered the report that had come across her desk about the possible outcome from the upcoming Langara vote to join the Tau'ri. If the joining vote came up yes and judging by the polls it was most likely going to surpass the needed two thirds then the entire population of the Tau'ri would go up by just over 20%. That opened up a new markets, new supply lines and gave them a boost in labor to take on the Colonials who would still outnumber them. The counterpoints while not many where of note, first Langara sat near the agreed borders of two Free Jaffa and a Lucian Alliance nation, which all hated each other. A war there would bring the Tau'ri into the fight, a fight they would have been in anyhow considering their close alliance with Langara but it was still a concern. The other issue was while the Langara had progressed rapidly since they made contact with the Tau'ri their technology was still mostly in the early to mid 1980s. There world like Earth would have to be upgraded with all the new technology from the Gate and Asgard database.

"Oh, one a personal note we finally set a date." reported Jonas as he pulled out a letter and handed it to his old friend. "Here is the invitation to the wedding."

"Well it is about time that you and Kianna made it official, you already have two kids." Laughed Carter

"Well, we couldn't have a wedding during the ORI occupation while I was being hunted and afterward Kianna didn't want to be pregnant on her wedding day. What can I say she wants to look beautiful on the day no matter what I say." explained Jonas with a shrug "Well we are making it official now."

"I will be there, Bra'tak and a delegation of Jaffa should be arriving in a few minutes if you want to stay here and say hello." explained Carter "After them the Tok'ra are coming as well."

"I am afraid I will have to stay with the delegation but I will make sure to talk to them during the lunch after the ceremony," explained Jonas as they went off to review the soldiers.

**Meanwhile above their heads a Daedalus class ship exited hyperspace and moved toward the planet. It passed by the Yorktown and the Britannia before coming to a stop. **When it did a silver craft left the ship and headed toward the planet, as it descended two Eagle fighters followed it down in escort. The silver craft landed outside of Celin and before a waiting General O'Neill. All around him where armed guards but they were dressed not in battle armor which included power suits but instead BDUs with bullet proof vests and rifles in a ready but lowered position.

The back ramp lowered as a giant figure nearly seven foot tall and covered in a golden chrome stepped off. It had a single red visor and had no flesh of any kind, it stepped off the transport followed by two more. Then the real delegation stepped down, there was seven of them both men and women and dressed as if they were going to a funeral which they were. The woman wore black dressed with gloves over their hands while the men wore suits with matching black gloves. That was a tradition from some of the worlds in the Colonies that the Cylons had decided to use. The last four Cylon centurions stepped off the transport.

"Welcome to Valhalla." greeted O'Neill to the seven humanoid model Cylons keeping an eye on the seven centurions. Six of them where decked out in a bright silver chrome which would have been laughable for a war machine on Earth and the last one was covered in Gold, they would be as easy to spot on a battlefield as a single cloud in a clear sky.

"Thank you for having us." said the older looking man called model one. "Now before we go to this ceremony and meet with the delegations from the other powers we must be assured that we will not be seen."

"Only your centurions will be seen." reassured General O'Neill "The Rest of you will watch from the reception hall at our command tower or if you want to risk it we can move you to a spot in the crowd. You will not be noticed among all the other faces."

"We don't want to risk it." said a women, actually a perfect copy of the news reporter they had taken from Tauron currently getting ready to broadcast. "We will wait at the reception hall."

"Besides I am sure there will be drinks there." stated another female cylon, intelligence had her as model 8 and a copy of her was currently under confinement with the other Colonials that had journeyed back from Pegasus.

"There will be drinks of course." confirmed O'Neill "free drinks."

"Free drinks well that is something I am used too." said another cylon woman, this one could have been a centerfold in playboy with ease and like the other one a copy of her was hiding among the Colonial Delegation which had journey to Pegasus.

"I am sure of that," laughed General O'Neill

"Are you coming on to me, General." countered the cylon six with a laugh of her own. It was clear that both sides was joking but they still moved on. "I am not sure how weird that would be for you, knowing I am a cylon."

"Miss, I have done some very weird things including time travel and having the entire knowledge base of the Ancients downloaded into my brain two times." explained O'Neill with a laugh of his own. "You wouldn't even break the two twenty. Besides I am too old for that and there is too much to do."

Everyone laughed at that, they all knew that they were joking around but the Cylons did not realize that the time travel and the ancient downloads were not a joke.

**At that same moment, D'Anna Biers stood in front of a Tau'ri news camera dressed in cloths provided by the Tau'ri and surrounded by two armed guards. **The guards had no idea that she was in fact a Cylon and on their side and neither did the crew behind the cameras. They kept giving her a look as if they were waiting for a reason to blow her head off but they had orders not to do anything to her. The other news crews who had gathered in the raised stand behind where the ceremony would take place all looked at her with similar eyes, so did the civilians and military personal who walked past her toward the area set aside for them.

"I am ready." reported D'Anna as she took a breath and prepared herself to put on a show of a lifetime.

**At that same moment in the Colonies, the main news network Colonial News Association was running a live story about the kidnapping of D'Anna from her Tauron apartment**. The video they kept showing was one of the strike team moving down the hall with her bound and a hood over her face.

"Why would they Tau'ri take her?" inquired the main anchor Mike Capaldi.

"We have no idea, but it can't be good." Said an "expert" who had been called in, he was about to go on when Mike lifted his hand to his ear.

"Say that again?" inquired Mike, there was a pause before he turned toward the screen. "Ladies and Gentlemen this is hard to believe but we are getting a broadcast from D'Anna Biers."

"What?" asked the "expert" as he turned toward a TV behind him to see an image of D'Anna dressed in a black dress with gloves over her hands. In her hand was a microphone. Behind her was a flat field of some kind with two large masses. Two stages flanked the masses and people dressed in black where gathered between the stage and where she was.

"Hello, Mike do you hear me?" inquired D'Anna

"We do D'Anna where are you?" inquired Mike

"Well that is hard to believe but I am one the Tau'ri world of Valhalla or Kobol as we call it." reported D'Anna as the senior news man eyes widened. "The Tau'ri adducted me but apart from the rude awaking they have treated me kindly and promise to return me to the Colonies within a few hours along with the delegation which journeyed to what they call the Pegasus front."

"I see." said Mike not sure what to ask.

"They want me to do some reporting about the situation here and hopefully clear up a few things." explained D'Anna "First behind me you see people arriving for a ceremony to remember the dead in the nuclear blast from the attack on the world. I have flown over the area we hit and this was done by a nuclear blast."

"Could they have done it to themselves?" inquired Mike as he repeated one of the common myths about the Tau'ri, one of the others was that there was no nuke strike in the first place.

"Not that I have seen, they have allowed me to interview a handful of POWs and they confirm to me that they fired on the plant." reported D'Anna as the Tau'ri broadcast the recorded interviews back to the Colonies.

**An aid rushed down the halls of power in what remained of the Colonial government toward the newly appointed Vice President of the 12 colonies of Kobol, Mr. Spiros. **He walked into the room to find the President and the Vice President having a heated debate. The heat of the words caused him to pause and gather his thoughts.

"No I will not change the titles to the 13 colonies of Kobol." snapped Adar to Spiros "It is bad enough you promised the people that we would not only take Kobol but Earth as well."

"Well I had no idea that Earth was decades away by our current FTL when I made that promise." stated Spiros in a slightly calmer voice. "Besides Secretary Cain is already working on a way to invade the Kobol, once we reclaim it we can hopeful capture some of our cousins technology and cut that time to something more manageable."

"All the generals and admirals, I have talked to agreed we can't invade Kobol, we don't have the man ready and we don't know what is in front of us. It would be suicide to send our marines into a place when they have no idea what they are dealing with." countered Adar "Frak, we don't even know what sort of vehicles the Tau'ri all have to fight a land war. All we have is still images taken by a passing drone at high orbit."

"Maybe you are correct, but we have to give the people hope." said Spiros "Also those same people would also tell you that the Tau'ri couldn't have moved much in the way of ground forces to Kobol. The task of moving tanks and all the equipment would take a long time and from all reports there fleet is limited in numbers so they can only move a small amount at any one time."

"That may be true." Admitted the President "But I will not order a ground attack until I know more, hopeful the drone strike will give us better information when they begin."

"A wise move." confirmed the VP "Maybe the drone strikes will make them see the error of their ways and we will not have to force a landing and instead be welcomed as cousins."

"Mr. President, Mr. Vice President." said the aid as they turned to him. "You will want to see this."

"See what?" inquired the President as the aid walked toward a TV and turned it to the news. By now all the networks where carrying the images broadcasted on their sister network so it didn't matter.

"What is this?" inquired the VP

"Sir, this appears to be a broadcast from Kobol. The Tau'ri kidnapped D'Anna Beirs and she is reporting from some sort of ceremony to remember the dead." Explained the aid "She is doing this live and they don't seam to be stopping her from answering any question they are asking her. They even broadcasts interviews from our POWs and some Tau'ri generals who explained that the gassing was an accident because they destroyed a ship not knowing it was onboard. The canisters fell down on our world after the ship was destroyed."

"This is just horrible; this could turn public opinion against us," stated Adar "The people believe the Tau'ri gassed us and with this we can't even say that the Tau'ri lied about the attacks with a straight face."

"She is lying; we can always say she was forced to say those words at gunpoint." countered Mr. Spiros

"They say she is going to be returned to the Colonies in a few hours." Stated the aid

"Then we can get her on the TV and she will confirm what we say." Added Mr. Spiros

"And what if she doesn't." countered the President "She could easily say she was not forces to say anything she didn't want and then we are fraked."

"Not really, she can be forced if we have to say what we want." stated Mr. Spiros "There are limits to freedom of press during war."

"That is true, but the limits are narrowed to giving away troop movements and secret information," countered Adar as he turned his attention back to the screen. The area did look like a blast zone from a nuke, flat and devoid of any sign of life. That only raised another question how did they clean up the radiation from the blast. Likely one of those magic like new technologies there cousins had.

"Wait a moment," said Spiros as he heard what the reporter was saying. "They are going to do what?"

"Sounds like they are planning to hold a religious ceremony of some kind," reported the aid "likely multiple ones since they have multiple religions."

"They are going to praise to their false god on the holy fields of Kobol!" yelled Spiros as he blood boiled. "This is an outrage! THEY WILL PAY FOR DEFILING WITH THEIR FALSE GOD KOBOL!"

**Two stages had been set up in the remains of the train yard; the burned melted remains of multiple freight trains covered the ground. **Thanks to the cleaning technology from the Asgard the area had been cleared of radiation however the trains remained as a reminder of what had happened. The same cleaning technology that had removed the rubble, however this close to ground zero where the bomb exploded nothing was left but hunks of metal. In the distance, the remains of some of the stronger stone and steel buildings such as churches and low-level office buildings could be seen. Past that there were the remains of houses, slowly and under escort to make sure everything was safe the people who once lived there were coming home to start the process of rebuilding their lives. Many of those homeowners where now dead and either awaiting a return to family on Earth to be laid to rest while others would rest on Valhalla. There would be some who they would never find their bodies of because they had been vaporized by the blast.

The stages had been set up on either side of the twisted remains of two train locations which had been melted together by the heat of the nuclear fireball. The images of those two trains had somehow been stuck in the mental conscience of the people of the people of Earth. It was one of a handful of images that had been burned into the public mind, like the Tau'ri flag raising and the image of a German solider holding a wounded child. Because of this and its location near the actual ground zero over the lake this would be the future site of the memorial. Plans where already being considered for what would fill the space but that would be settled in the future.

Men, women and children filled the area most where dressed in black to honor the dead and almost all of them had demons of their own as they remembered where they had been when the flash of light changed everything. Most had been near enough to see the flash with their own eyes, some still carried the scars from that day, some had lost their homes and personal items and still others had lost those close to them. Their numbers swelled past five thousand but a single center column which lead toward the remains of the trains and the stages remained cleared. It remained cleared because of Tau'ri soldiers in dress uniforms making sure they remained cleared. The soldiers where mixed up so no single nation had a solider of that same nation standing beside it. Still every other solider was armed with the traditional weapon of that nations honor guard. In some cases it was swords and in others it was bolt action rifles with bayonets attached. The other soldiers where unarmed aside from their side arms.

A single bell began to ring solemnly as the ceremony began, from behind the two raised platform set up for the news crews Tau'ri soldiers dressed in full dress uniform came out. They moved out in pairs each of them carrying the flags of their home nation. As they moved down the path the soldiers on either side snapped to attention and held their position as the flags from each nation passed by. Thanks to small fans built into the polls each flag flapped strongly in manmade wind. The soldiers separated at the trains and moved up to the stage to a raised part of the stage behind the chairs set aside for the delegation. The last eight flags where the flags of the main eight nations and right behind them came a single solider were carrying the largest of all the flags, the blue and silver flag of the Tau'ri. These nine soldiers moved to the front and stood in front of the trains. A podium had been set up there and they split up so four of them stood to each side with the man carrying the Tau'ri flag stood behind the podium but leaving enough room for a speaker.

The next group to move down the walkway was the world leaders, they moved toward their assigned position behind their nation's flag on the stages. The following groups were the visiting delegations from the Tok'ra, Jaffa and others. These entered along with their own flag barrier who took a position to the front part of the stage. The last two groups of visiting delegation caused the most upset within the colonies. One was a strange group of humanoid like creatures which vines in their hair. They were clearly not humans which was enough to cause people in the 12 colonies of Kobol confusion but the group that came in after them caused them to rage in fear and in anger. There was five of them, all of them where around seven foot tall and had the red visor which marked them as Cylons.

"As you can see, the Tau'ri have invited Cylons to this religious gathering. This is the first time since the end of our war with them that colonial eyes have seen them." reported D'Anna with an inward grin as the Centurions moved across the field, one of them was carrying the old flag of the Cylon nation, a black flag with a single silver slash across it. In truth, it was part of the marketing campaign that the company who had made the Cylons had come up with, but the now free Cylons had kept it. The centurions moved to their assigned spot beside at the far end of the stage. The golden centurion marked it as the leader when in fact the real leader was watching at a distance.

The last group to enter were the religious leaders each of them with two aids of their own, the death bell kept ringing as each one walked down the long walkway toward their assigned position. Once they had reached their location the opening, ceremony ended and as one all the flag barriers lowered their flags, the only one who didn't was the man carrying the Tau'ri flag which flew high. For a moment nothing could be heard aside from the wind and the sound of people crying.

This was not a political event but it still held important meaning as the ceremony began and one by one the leaders from each of the Earth's great religious came forward and gave a blessing to the ground before them. The order that they in had been assigned randomly so that no one religion could be given an advantage. This went on for two hours as D'Anna broadcast to the colonies what she had learned about each the religions. She also had to explain to the people of the 12 colonies of Kobol the religious beliefs of the none Tau'ri nations which come, from the ancestral worship of the Jaffa to the holy mother and father of the Lancances who both guild the dead to rest and comforted the living. Finally the last two religions who hadn't spoken began.

An older man dressed in white moved toward the podium helped along with a staff with a figure of another man hanging from the cross. On either side where two other men dressed in red, one carried a book and even with a podium he opened it up and held it so that the man could read a passage from their holy book. The man in white nodded his head before turning to the crowd.

"Look around and what do you see?" inquired the man in white "Some see a field of death where so many lives were lost in a single act or hate, others will feel the same hate that cause this field in their own heart but in time God and his only son Jesus Christ will heal those wounds. However that isn't what I see."

He paused for a brief moment to gather himself.

"I see people of all different faiths, of all different nations, of in fact all different races gathered together peaceful to honor the dead. We have come so far we have put aside so much of our own hatred of each other, we are building a future that is limitless. We can see a new horizon, we can build on all that we have done. We will go on through the tears to discover new frontiers with the same spirit which has caused us to reach were we are now. We will remember those who will never see the future that await us and we will comfort those who lost everything while we rebuild but we will go on. It is in the human spirt to go on and in faith of our own God or Gods and in each other we will go on together."

With that the man in white walked crossed himself and walked away, leaving only one group left to speak. This group was alien even to the Tau'ri but it was a group of Aliens they had seen on their Television screens and therefor they slightly understood that the Nox stood for. The Nox delegation moved toward the podium however unlike the others who had only come with at most two aids instead the entire delegation moved to the podium. Everyone watched as the one Nox who was dressed differently than the others moved to the podium.

"There is a tradition among our people which dates back millions of years to when our race was very young and had only just began working in stone. We plant a special tree; we call the tree of remembrance for those who lost their lives" explained the Nox form of a priest before nodding his head toward the others.

As one the group both men and women began to sing, none of the group understood the words that the Nox where saying in their song but it spoke of sadness. It brought tears to the eyes of many and as the song moved on the priest moved behind the flag barrier so that he stood between the two twisted remains of the trains. He pulled out a small seed and taking a handful of dirt, he planted the seed in the ground. Then something truly amazing happened, that small seed shot up and began to grow at a rapid pace until it was over seven foot tall with limbs spread out like a fully mature tree. The tree a native to the Nox home world of Gaia was unlike any they had ever seen, the bark was a pure white and the leaves where a pure silver.

Then the tree began to react to the song, the bark and the leaves began to change colors matching until the tree was every color of the rainbow. When the song stopped the tree returned to its natural white and silver. With that done the ceremony was ending, sad music began as the procession out began. Once again, tree reacted as a different light show began and just as before it was beautiful.

"Well I believe that is the end of the ceremony," stated D'Anna as the Cylon centurions marched past. "This is D'Anna Beirs reporting from the Tau'ri world of Valhalla."

With that, the communication link which the Tau'ri had been broadcasting into the Colonials networks cut off leaving the Colonials with more questions than answers.

**Well I hope you liked this chapter and the ceremony that was held by the Tau'ri to remember those fallen in the attack on Valhalla. Now until next time I ask that you keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75**


	45. Chapter 45

**Chapter 45 Dinner and Prepare**

The Tau'ri was putting on a show for the visiting delegations from around the galaxy and the humanoid Cylons could not believe the things they saw. The meeting area was grand in both scale and beauty, in truth it was the lobby for the Tau'ri command tower but it had been closed to the public. The lobby covered two floors connected by grand staircases whom flanked an indoor water feature showing a bronze statue of Valhalla itself. The lobby was made out of white marble with pillars holding reaching up to the ceiling. Up in that ceiling where mosaics showing images from the history of each Tau'ri nation along with some images from the brief history of Tau'ri on Valhalla.

Food and drink had been set up on tables so that the visitors could enjoy themselves. It was becoming clear to the Cylons that it was a tradition on Earth at events like this to have different political leaders mingle together and talk to each other in a semi informal way. For the first time the humanoid cylons where not the strangest things in the room, in truth they were far from the strangest things.

"So what have you learned?" inquired Cavil to a Six as he took a drink of water, the two of them had moved off to stand beside a column, behind them a small holographic protector was slowly moving between different Tau'ri art work. Across from them was a wall full of flowers and tokens for the fallen.

"That the Tau'ri are stronger then even we thought, the only thing that is keeping the Colonials in this war is the lack of Tau'ri ships and their wish not to massacure them before the eyes of the rest of the galaxy." stated the Six as she looked around the room at the strange group of people. While a lot of people seamed human she had learned that wasn't the case. The delegates from different Jaffa nations belonged to a group called Jafffa who were once the warrior class of the Goa'uld who ruled the galaxy. Another group looked on the outside to be very human but in fact at some kind of parasite within them and while DNA wise it was match to the Goa'uld this group the Tok'ra was acceptable because of their beliefs in freedom compared to their cousins. There were also humans from less advance worlds then the Tau'ri but seemed to be very friendly with them.

"I could have told you that." countered Cavil

"Well that group from Lanagara will likely join the Tau'ri in a month or two," stated the six as she remembered overhearing the leader of their Delegation Jonas Quinn talking to a female General name Carter. "They were already talking about what teams they could send to begin modernizing their world to the Tau'ri standards that is a couple hundred million people added to the Tau'ri population in an instant."

"Only that one world?" inquired Cavil as he looked around the room full of people. A lot of them where from Earth but there was delegates from dozens of smaller worlds.

"At the moment, sounds like the Lanagara's are very close to the Tau'ri and the other worlds are using them as a test case." Explained the Six "If they are integrated well, they too many join the Tau'ri."

"So Lanagara is the test to see how everything works." stated Cavil as he took a bite of what the waiter called shrimp. It was good but not as good as some of the stuff he took from the meat and cheese earlier. "If the Tau'ri are bringing all these worlds together that will cancel out a lot of the advantages the Colonials have. Frak their technology is already doing that."

"Not so sure, from what I have gathered some of these worlds only have a few hundred thousands people, Lanagara is one of the most populated." explained the six as she looked toward a three who was talking to a man dressed in all white and flanked by two men in red. It was the her along with the five's job to find out more about the Tau'ri religions. "We need to get one of these stargates, it is the key to intergalactic relations."

"Agreed and I plan to ask the Tau'ri for one once their war with the Colonials is over." stated Cavil as the six looked at her. "The Tau'ri are too powerful for us or maybe anyone to stand against for long but once we show our loyalty to them we may become one of their favorite allies. I would rather be standing behind the winning side then on my fraken back bleeding to death because I pissed the winning side off. Also seeing them deliver a smack down to our former masters will be worth it."

"And the other models will go along with this?" inquired the Six

"I believe that they will." confirmed Cavil as he took a drink.

**Across the hall a model three was talking with a religious man from one of the many Tau'ri religious faiths.**

"So you had no idea about any of this until a few weeks ago?" inquired the three

"No idea." confirmed the man as he held a book with a golden cross on it. "I must admit the truth about Aliens and the Ancients has caused a lot of issues among our most religious elements. However humans adapt quickly and the fact that none of them are going to conquer us helps."

"And this hasn't led to war?" inquired the three as the man shook his head.

"No, in true I think on some levels we always knew we weren't the only life forms in this universe." stated the Protestant Minister "Science can't answer some of the great mysteries of faith and while Faith used to be the enemy of science that isn't the case now. In fact my counterparts in the Vatican has scientist priests."

The three blinked a scientists who was a priest was unheard of in the colonies, faith and science where at best angry neighbors if not enemies.

"True they are mostly fund Observatories but I saw a show where one of their member even said before we knew about the Stargate that he would baptism them in their faith if they wanted." explained the minister. "That is one thing some of the more faithful is pushing for, to allow missionaries to go forth and spread the good word to the countless worlds of this galaxy and the Pegasus one."

"Wouldn't that just lead to more conflict like it has with the Colonies?" countered the three as the minister nodded his head in agreement.

"Yes and maybe the government has a point in not letting us do that." admitted the holy man before titling his head a bit "You seem very interested in the different faiths of Earth, if you want I can get you a copy of the bible."

"I have heard there are many different holy books on Earth, I would like to have them all." Explained the three

"Then you shall have it." Said the man "I am sure it will not be hard to get you an electronic copy of the different holy works."

**To the North far over the horizon a single Condor bomber flew toward the target area on Valhalla, in truth the pilot was boarded out of his mind.** When he was assigned to the research station he expected to be flying dangerous missions into Colonial Space, not test some new bomb.

"Target locked." Said the pilot as he flipped the switch and a single pod about 13 feet long dropped off his bird before extending small wings of it's own. The bomb guided itself the rest of the way toward the target area where it broke apart and dropped over five thousand grenade size balls over the target area. The balls fell toward the target, which was nothing more than a grassy field with a clump of trees in the middle. The balls exploded above the ground flinging a thick black substance over the area, instantly the area became engulfed in deep green flames. The flames roared and licked the sky as it spread over the testing ground, burning everything in its path.

"Well it appears that we have this Hades Fire." stated a researcher as an owl began dumping water on the fire, to no effect.

"No, this isn't Hades Fire." Stated the Japanese head researcher as another Owl dropped firefighting foam on the fire at once again no effect. "That is what the Colonials call it, we have improved it."

Two large Pelican transports dropped sand which was the way to put out the fire, which was the way the Colonials would put out their version of Hade's fire. It had an effect on the fire but instead of putting it out it made the flames bigger. Only went a Daedalus class cruiser passed over head firing an Asgard beam did the fire die.

"What are we calling this?" asked the first research

"Dragon Fire," answered the head researcher, the thing was while it burned at a lower temperature then napalm, it could not be put out in the normally ways and that made it dangerous.

The head researcher with a laugh of his own, as he looked at the last of the data from the test. Everything looked good and in fact everything had gone as they had expected, they would of course go in and check the area out but there was no reason to be seen to not go into production.

**The situation in the 12 colonies of Kobol was getting tenser with each passing moment, people where in the street of every major city on every world.** Crowds were protesting but they were not protesting the same thing. Groups that where more religious where raising arms against the Tau'ri for holding a religious ceremony on their holy world, these groups could be found on every world but where largest on Sagittaron and Gemenon. The other group was those who called for the government to answer the claims of the Tau'ri about how the war was started by the Colonials and how the gas was their own. The anti-government group was largest on Libran and to a slightly lesser level Virgon.

From the outside, it appeared that anti-government protests who were asking only for information countering the Tau'ri claim seemed reasonable but they were being over powered by the more radical groups yelling at the top of their lungs. Their position was not helped since the government and the media where pushing stories out how the Tau'ri could have faked everything. One expert had even come on the news to say how that even if the Tau'ri was telling the truth about the Colonials firing first it didn't matter because they were holding Kobol illegal since it was granted to the 12 colonies of Kobol. Other experts and news outlets soon began calling the war with the Tau'ri, the 1st Colonial Civil War. Since the only use of nuclear weapons in a war apart from in space happened during the Tauron Civil War it helped get the public mind around the idea that nuclear weapons were ok to use in a civil war. Not even during the Cylon war did the Cylon use nuclear weapons on the colonial people, because part of their goal was to take over the worlds and they did not want at the time to rule over a nuclear wasteland. The idea of a Civil War also allowed people to claim that the fight was to reunite the tribes of man instead of subjection. In the end it worked, as the Tau'ri attempt to spread the truth was breaking down as each world marched toward war in their own way.

Aerilon, which is the food basket of the colonies and among the poorest, was in general favorable of the war because the people there say Kobol as a completely new world full of land to settle on and start a new and better life. Aquaria with the only world which did not have protests for or against the war because the mostly ice covered world was in the middle of winter and the population of only 30,000 didn't want to protest in the middle of blizzard. Canceron the most populated of the colonies was pushing for war for some of the same reasons Aerilon was, new land on Kobol to hold the massive amount of poor people and give them a better life. Caprica, the seat of government would normally stand against the more religious worlds stood with them because the people had been the victim of more Tau'ri attacks then any other and it was Caprica City that had been gassed. Some of the pro war supports even admitted it was likely the gas was an accident by the Tau'ri but it was the Tau'ri that had destroyed the ship containing the gas in the first place. Gemenon being the 3rd most populous also wanted to resettle people on Kobol but they had a stronger reason to push for war. With only the possible exception of Sagittaron this was the hotbed of religious beliefs and a holy call to reclaim Kobol was all that they needed to take up arms. Leonis was more split on the question then most worlds, the populous wasn't as eager for war as others but they did know as the heart of Colonial industry they would have a role to play in making the tools to fight and that meant money. Only on Libran was the anti-war group the majority and there it was only a slight edge, in the heart of Colonial higher education and law did they question the Tau'ri claim that they had lost all claim to Kobol after leaving it for two thousand years. Picon, which held the Colonial high command and because of that held many families of military members, was behind the war because of their strong ties to the military.

On Sagittaron, the push for war was all but universal there was no demonstrations for peace only priests and priestess calling the world known for not serving in the military to battle. Millions of men and women where signing up in the over populated slums of the massive cities and children had to be turned away from signing up. It got worse when a powerful priest promised that anyone who fell in the holy act to retake Kobol would have their sins expunged and they would stand before the Lords of Kobol without sins. Scopia with its shipyards was pulling for the war because the largest employer the Scopia shipyards would have to hire and grow to retool, rearm and build ships to carry out this fight. People from Tauron who were always the most war like where behind the government and the war because they didn't see how anyone could stand up against the bravery of Tauron soldiers in the field of honor. On Virgon, the anti-war element found the other friendly audience but even here among the wealthy people who called the world home the push for war was too strong.

The 12 colonies of Kobol was heading to war and there was nothing that could stop it. Factories where coming to life as they prepared to make the Vipers, Raptors, Tanks, Battlestars and others tools of war that would be needed for war. However the Colonies having been united for so long had worlds specialized in different things and that may have helped them in a regular economy where ships could travel without fear between worlds but not in a war economy when those ships could be destroyed at any moment.

**Secretary of Defense for the 12 Colonies of Kobol Helena Cain was in the apartment she had rented out so that she could be near to her office instead of her official home on Tauron.** The apartment was simple, a bed, a small kitchen which she had no plans of using and a living room which was currently being used as an office. She had chosen this simple apartment because she planned to spend most of her time working in her office or visiting the troops. She had actually been asleep when the knock at the door caused her to sit up in bed and move to the door. She opened it and took the file from a member of the protective detail before closing it again. She opened it and read the report, it was something that could have waited but since she was up she was up.

"What is it?" asked the blonde bombshell who shared her bed.

"I can't tell you that," stated Cain at the woman in her bed.

"Come on, I work for the shipyards and I just got assigned to work on the nine more of those giant frakers the Hercules class Battlestars that they are commissioning because of the war." laughed the woman as Cain reread the paper. It was actually a low class of classification and would be shared among even some low level officers. "We discovered an element that seems to be key to Tau'ri technology, it was found in the residue of all their nuclear explosions, space craft and what we have recovered after it self-destruction of their power systems. It is likely the backbone of their technology."

"Thank the Lords of Kobol," said the woman "Do we have any of this element?"

"Yes, we do but that is part of the problem," explained Cain "Looks like the element can only be found in a single deposit under the ocean floor of Aquaria, near Nyx military base and armory."

"Isn't that an ice covered wasteland?" inquired the woman

"Why do you think we produce and store our nuclear weapons there," stated Cain, it was a well-known fact that the base which sat on the opposite side of a planet from the only populated city on the entire planet was home to the largest stash of nuclear weapons. It was far away from cilivians so an accident wouldn't affect any civilians beside the ones who worked at the base. "I am going to order a team to get samples so that we can study it, right now it is worthless but somehow the Tau'ri frakers know how to refine it into something useful. Then we can turn the tables on them and win this war with ease."

**On Sagittaron Viper Pilot, Kara Thrace moved around the new Viper mark VIII, she ran her hands over the freshly painted skin of the bird.** Over the black paint that said her name and over the black image of a Tau'ri fighter with a red X through it. She had shot down that bird when they made contact with the Tau'ri before war was declared but no one was going to say anything about her marking the kill. The team of researchers had done what she wanted in modifying the bird, the six missile racks that was two more than the current viper had been filled.

Of the six racks, two of them now held gun pods, that brought her total number of guns from three to five. That was due into part of her idea that the only way to beat the long range missiles the Tau'ri favored was to get in close and use guns. The bird still had missiles only instead of six like it had been designed for she carried two. The other two racks held rocket boosters, which would increase the speed of the Viper by 70% for 90 seconds. The rocket pods could not be fired one at a time and once turned on they couldn't be turned off. All those attachments where standard extra equipment that could be added to any viper. The special modifications in this bird was hard to see at first.

Located behind the cockpit was a small pod, that pod was a DRADIS jammer pod designed to jam incoming missiles allowing the bird to escape. They had never been put on a Viper before because it messed with the beacon that ID the bird as friendly to colonial missiles. Since missiles where going to take a back seat that was now something they added. The other four small disks that sat two on each wing, these disks would shoot off anti-missile chaff which would help protect the bird. Two of the pods even faced forward so that missiles coming straight in would hit those instead of the bird.

"This is a true warbird," said Kara as she prepared to test the bird before it went into mass production.

**On Tauron massive trains where pulling out of military depos and moving across the many miles of railroads to their destinations.** Tauron was a mostly flat world with a few spots of rolling hills and small oceans so a lot of goods moved by rail. Each train went to prepared positions around key cities around Tauron and in other key locations and each carried only a single weapon.

"What the hell is that?" asked a Spanish commando as he and his team watched what had to be a good two hundred men and women work on the train. The train had backed up into a Cylon war era defense position which was now being reactive. The defense work was basically a mini fort made out of earth works in the shape so that looking from above it looked like a star. They had watched yesterday as long-range artillery and rocket launchers where moved into the base. That made sense to the Spanish, the Colonials where setting up defenses and pre placed artillery were very useful for that.

They had even seen what looked to be scud missile launchers only to have their intelligence expert explain that those missiles where ground to space weapons designed to shot down Cylon Basestars. Even he not even he could figure out what the Colonials where working on with this new trainload. It didn't make any sense, they were building something on top of a rotating disk which looked like it was designed to turn trains around. Over the course of a few hours, it became clear as a massive gun barrel was attached to the base that the colonials had been building.

"It's a railroad gun?" said the Spanish from their distance hill top observation point almost 10 miles away. Railroad guns had not been used on Earth in any great scale since World War 2 and even than they were rare. The massive guns had range yes but they were so large that it made them easy targets to destroy from the air.

"Yes, looks to be about an 80 cm gun that would put it as large as the Nazi Germany gun Dora I believe." said the intelligence officer. "We can use that to find out it's likely max range."

"Why would the Colonials set up something like that?" asked an enlisted man "It makes no sense."

"It does make a sort of twisted sense." countered the Intelligence officer "Their last war, the one with the Cylons it resembled more of WW1 then anything we are use to. They had fixed lines and trenches and each side would try to force the other out of their trenchs to gain ground. In fights like that large guns can be very useful."

"Have they ever heard of missiles?" countered the man

"In the early days of the war the Cylons hacked missiles in flight and sent them back on the colonials." explained the officer "That is why the Colonials warships used guns on their battlestars instead of missiles. Commanders are always guilty of using the tactics of the last war in the new war. We better report this to command and see if they are setting up guns like these on other worlds."

**The industries of the Tau'ri where also being mobilized, nations and companies which had long competed against each others were being united for a common goal of defeating the Colonials. **There goal was to feed, equip and arm the massive army which was forming across Earth and Valhalla. To organize this the German Chancellor was place in charge and given a task even larger than the great industrial miracle that made the United States of America the arsenal of freedom.

The greatest advantage was the massive wide crossing high-speed railroad system that the Chinese Government had pushed for and had finally finished. The trains ran almost totally underground from six major hubs under places such as Indianapolis USA, Warsaw Poland, Mumbai India, Tianjin PRC, Salvador Brazil and Cairo Egypt. There was of course other stations in major cities around the world and each Tau'ri nation had at least one.

The tunnels that had been made using Tok'ra tunnel crystals, which made project that would have been impossible possible. Trains now ran under the ocean from Canada to Greenland and from Greenland to Iceland before splitting off to Norway and Scotland. Another similar tunnel followed the Aleutian islands in Alaska to the Kamchatka Peninsula in Eastern Russia. There it split again down to Japan and across to china through South Korea. The other line headed straight across Russia. Train lines even crossed between Brazil and wester Africa before splitting off one track heading up toward Spain and another to the hub in Cairo. Tunnels ran down the east and west coast of North and South America, crossing under the Gulf of Mexico and touching the larger islands. Tunnels even ran down to Australia and New Zealand but because of the massive distance with little land no tunnels ran between New Zealand and South America.

This was of great benefit to the Tau'ri war effort because it allowed easy transport of goods from across the world to other places around the world. The plan was simple different parts of the world would specialize in different war material and then they would go to three massive hubs one in Russia East of the Ural Mountains, one in Gobi desert in China and the Mojave Desert in the United States. The trains full of supplies would gather there for the arrival of the Stargate to transport to Valhalla.

With transport solved, it was up to the German Chancellor to decide what part of the globe would focus on making for the war. It was soon decided that factories in Germany and Russia with additional help from factories in China would focus on making the Leopard tank. While the USA would bring all the car factories across the nation to making Pumas APC, Cougars recon vehicles and most of all transport trucks.

Uniforms where going to be mass produced in textile factories in Indian and Southern China, to make the process easier and old uniforms which had been made by each nation and had different camo patterns where standardized. So now instead of over twenty battle uniforms there was one, same went to combat boots and other pieces of clothing, everything was being standardized.

Factories in Western United States would build the power armor required for all the millions if not billions of new soldiers signing up to fight while factories in Japan built the helmets and with the mini computers and heads up display. It was the task of the United States small arms manufactory who had once focused on the large civilian market to now build all the Assault rifles, Shotguns, Sniper Rifles and other small arms required to arm the army. An even greater challenge was making the ammo needed for the guns; the first order that went out from the combined governments of the Tau'ri was to make almost 900 million rounds of small arms ammunitions.

Factories in Germany, France and Russia where assigned the task of assembling the Tank Shells, artillery rounds and missiles. Sadly due not having elements on Earth such as Naquadah the building of Eagles, Condors and other space crafts could not happen on mass on Earth. That would be the task of Valhalla and the massive amount of people preparing to move to that world to take up the job in the new factories being built by both civilian construction companies and military combat engineers.

Both sides where heading head long toward war and nothing seemed able to stop it. The last hope for peace rested with the Nox and their attempt to bring peace between the Tau'ri and the 12 colonies of Kobol.

**Outside of the capital of Valhalla, Celin the Stargate was opened as a something that looked like the monorail from Disney World came out of the gate at around 15 miles an hour. **While the train looked like it would have belonged at Disney World, it was actually almost a perfect copy of what the ancients used. It was similar to a puddle jumper which allowed it to travel through the gate but it was long and separated into many cars which were attached together. Like a train car, there was both passenger and cargo. The trains floated over the ground without the use of any rails for the distance between the gate and the rails. Once on the rails it drew power from the rail and allowed the train to move out from the gate and spread out all over Valhalla.

The soldiers on the trainhad the new; some of them freshly issued standard Tau'ri assault rifle all of them wore the Russian flag on one shoulder and the Tau'ri flag on the other. Once cleared of the gate the cargo cars opened to show the tractors, bull dozers and other construction equipment. Some of which had been dissembled to fit onto the car.

"Who is this?" asked one of the workers as the train moved off the site. Once the gate was deactivate it was reactivated as an outbound train carrying a cars full of refined Naquadah that would be used in the war industry on Earth.

"That is the Russian 15th engineering core were have moved and the others have been going to do all sort of jobs." answered his supervisor. "In a few hours we will be start moving in the American 1st armored Division in and they will be loaded up with new Leopard III tanks, fresh off the factories floors of Earth and after that a Chinese Motorized Division and an Australian infantry division will be moving in. After that it slows down a bit as some civilian groups moved in, they will build the homes for all the soldiers and workers that will be flooding this world. Hell from what I heard they are trying to execute a development plan that would have taken five years in six months."

"Damn." cursed the ground crew as the gate shut off for a moment only to reactive as the engineering core kept moving in. "Three divisions that is what, 50,000 men?"

"More or less and that is on top of all the engineering cores we have been moving in." answered the other man "And more are likely mobilizing and forming up on Earth. The Colonials have no idea the hornet nest they hit when they attacked us."

**Well I hope you liked this chapter, I know not a lot happened but this is a set up chapter that will allow me to do some very interesting things in the future. I have to set the stage and that is what I am doing. Now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75**


	46. Chapter 46

**Chapter 46 Intelligence **

Sunrise over Valhalla was a strange thing for the Cylon model one or Cavil as he looked out over a city, which had technology that only a gifted sci-fi writer could have come up with but here it was common. The narrow buildings gleamed in the rising sun light but from the balcony of the hotel room he had been given he could see the barren stretch of land outside the walls of the city which showed where the Colonial nuke had gone off. A city with walls had been laughable for him but then he saw the Tau'ri do a test of the cities shield that ran from the top of the highest tower to the walls. That shield and those walls had protected the people inside the walls from the effects of that bomb. He looked down at his watch before moving on to prepare his day; the Tau'ri was going to show them around Valhalla. It was clear to the Cylons what the Tau'ri was doing, the Cylons had helped the Tau'ri with many operations and as such the Tau'ri was going to show them some things. It was also a way to show the Cylons that the Tau'ri was not a force to be messed with.

"Like we need to be told that," said Cavil he and the other Cylons had talked with some of the leaders from the different galactic powers and the stories where the same. The Tau'ri were a small in numbers but what they had was a technological edge that surpassed all other powers. Stories about how a dozen of Tau'ri could win against forces six to seven times their size. That was bad enough but then they learned that until recently the general population of Earth didn't know about life on other worlds, now they did and that brought their entire population into the fight.

**Across the Galaxy from Valhalla, a large group of Colonial POWs moved through the woods with simple axes on their shoulders. **They had only been prisoners for a few days but already they had fallen into a schedule. As far as all the POWs where concern the Tau'ri where very lax jailers, they did not even put up fence. Instead, they let the Colonials do what they wanted and since it appeared that somehow they had be transported to another world, it was understandable.

At first, no one believed that their cousins had transported them to another planet but then at nightfall two large moons rose in the sky and even in the mix of a battle the moons would have been noticed and they had not. The Tau'ri had provided them with housing and other supplies but they expected them to work for money to get special items. The work itself was simple, clearing brush and cutting down trees and in return, they got paid for their work. They worked a 10-hour day with an hour for lunch and breaks in between and when they went back to camp they got better food then those who refused to work. The Tau'ri had even set up a projector to show movies in the evenings, they were all Tau'ri made movies but they were entertaining.

"So why do you think the Tau'ri are being so kind to us?" inquired one of his work crew members as former Viper pilot James Chontos swung his ax down on a small tree.

"Who knows?" stated another member of the crew a marine who had been captured by Tau'ri tanks in a field.

"What would they gain by being cruel?" stated James as he brought his ax down hard so that the blade stuck in the wood. "Think about it, they have that machine which tells them if you lie or not right?"

"Yes." Said the marine

"So they don't need to hurt people to get information and then it comes down to making sure we stay where we are told and don't escape." added James. "We are on another world and if the Tau'ri told us is true we are on the other side of the galaxy from our home, it is kind of easy to keep us here."

"So what about those who don't work, how long until the Tau'ri force them too?" inquired the marine

"They will do nothing to force them to work," stated a woman in the group as a tree fell down bring down branches as it smashed into the ground.

"They don't want to keep feeding people who will not work." countered the marine "I understand their reasons for not wanting to work for the enemy, but it is just clearing land for a farm to feed ourselves it isn't like we are making bullets."

"True, but that isn't what I was getting to," stated the woman "When we get pay checks we will buy things from that store the Tau'ri set up and the people who don't work will want what we have and start working."

"Cunning frakers," stated the marine as he looked toward two of the few Tau'ri guards who just stood there in their power armor with a rifle resting in their hands. The more time they had spent around their cousins the stranger they seemed. They had actually talked about building two camps one for men and one for women. The Colonials had no idea why they would want to do that, but they also wanted separate bathrooms for men and women. A guard had come in to find some of the prisoners sleeping together and it was as if they could not understand how that was allowed in the military structure. Even with their confusion in general they where kind and a few guards would joke and talk to them as if they were not at war.

"The only thing we have to worry about is if our own government does anything stupid." said James, the Tau'ri have told them that whatever their government did to Tau'ri POW would be mirrored on them.

**Back on Valhalla General O'Neill was going into a meeting with General Carter and General Raj-Singh.**

"So do we have the final plan ready to take down Nysa?" inquired General O'Neill as General Raj-Singh nodded his head as he looked across the small table toward the Commander of all Tau'ri forces.

"General allow, me to explain how the operation will work." Started General Raj-Singh as the table began to glow and a holographic image of a rather large asteroid boarding on micro planet appeared. "This is Nysa a colonial mining center and military outpost; it is roughly about half the size of Pluto. There are in fact three mining operations here, here and here."

As the General pointed, the areas became highlighted in yellow.

"Aside from their mineral output they are of little importance, we will of course take them but our first goal is the colonial navy base here," explained the General as he tapped the area and it zoomed in to show what rather looked to be some kind of rib cage. It was a cinder shaped with huge reinforced bands running up the sides before connecting to a center band, which ran down the center. There were smaller out buildings with what appeared to be cannons of different sizes all likely connected to the center base by underground tunnels.

The image changed to show a blue print of the base, it appeared to be as if someone had built an airfield and then put a dome over it all. A large single runway ran down the center of the base with huge doors on either end, coming off the runway on either side where solid walls. On the other side of those walls was where the ground crew worked and the Vipers and Raptors where stored when not in flight.

"The Colonials launch their aircraft by tubes on either side of the base and they use the center runway to recover their aircraft. There are even extendable arms which come out the sides of the base to make unloading some of their smaller ships easier." explained General Rag-Singh "Now our plan to take the base is rather simple, the colonials never planned for an actual ground assault of any size and we will use that to our advantage. Eight teams of US Army rangers will be deployed by cloaked owls and land outside the base. Once on the surface they will take down the main anti-air defenses at that moment the USS Yorktown and an escorting fleet of five Daedalus class ships and four Galahad class destroyers will move in. The ships will clear the area from any colonial aircraft while the 101st airborne and the 15th Chinese Airborne will carry out a landing by Owls in the landing bay."

"Why not beam them down?" inquired General O'Neill

"Sir, we are going to have to use the Owls just because there is a limit of how many people we can beam over at any one time also we don't want the Colonials to know we have beaming technology," explained general Carter. "We are going to beam in teams to take down their HQ once there we can take control of the doors. If we have too we can vent the entire base into space."

"Ok, what are the estimates on our causalities?" inquired General O'Neill

"Low sir, we estimate between 5 to 15 KIA with around 30 wounded, that is mostly because of the expolsive rounds of the colonials and the fact that this is our first ground attack in space." explained General Raj-Singh. "Estimates on Colonial KIA or Captured is over three thousand and that is if there isn't a ship in orbit for use to destroy, if there is then the kill count goes up. The Marine forces they have there is only between 250 and 300 men and are poorly trained and they have old outdated equipment. This is where they send the worse of the worse, it is a punishment position."

"Like sending someone to the middle of artic." explained General Carter "Once we take the base we can set up a shield generators and we can begin moving in our Eagle fighters, we can use the base to launch operations on Colonial shipping with 36 hours after taking the base."

"Good, alright we will give the Nox a chance to maybe make peace, but prepare to launch the operation in 24 hours." explained General O'Neill as he moved on to the next issue. "Have we confirmed if the Colonials have that Russian Spetsnaz as a POW or is he KIA?"

"Unknown, like all the Special Forces he had a tracking beacon placed in the base of his neck but it broadcasts even if they are dead." explained general Raj-Singh "And all three singles from the Spetnazs are broadcasting from the same base on Caprica."

"Can we move in and beam them all out just to be safe?" inquired O'Neill, they were going to do it anyway just so families could lay their loved one to rest but recovering the dead wasn't worth a ship full of the living.

"We can but unless we want to have a fire fight between our forces and the two colonial fleets guarding both Caprica and Gemenon." explained General Raj-Singh "The colonial forces there are the strongest in all their space. Our best option is to wait until either we get confirmation that he is alive or the Odyssey returns from Pegasus."

"Very well." confirmed O'Neill as the briefing moved on.

**The sun was also rising outside of Caprica City as men and women dressed in rich golden robes, they moved past the statue of Apollo on his chariot as they headed toward the gardens located in the center of the building. **They walked past where teams of men and women where working to repair the damage to the priceless works of art done when the Tau'ri briefly held this building. Outside the city was alive with life as they tried to rebuild what the Tau'ri had destroyed during their attack. There was a sense of hope among the people, they had weathered the Tau'ri attack and just like when the Cylons rose up they knew that the worse was behind them. Now they would gather their forces and take the war to the Tau'ri.

When they opened the large bronze door to the greenhouse garden that was in the center of the building they were greeted by a site that they were not expecting. Standing there waiting for them was a group of seven people, four women and three men. Three of them where dressed in Colonial military uniforms while another three was dressed in normal civilians clothing and lastly single women wore the robes that marked her as a member of the Holy Order of Athena, a sister order to the Order of Apollo that ran this temple.

"What is the meaning of this?" inquired the head priest

"Sorry that was my doing," said a new voice as the Priest and Priestess of Apollo turned to look toward the source. Their minds could not process what they were seeing but standing there was something that looked semi human but was clearly not. He was shorter than a man should be and had vines and leaves growing out his hair. His skin was the wrong tone and his eyes where slightly too large. He was looking at one of the small trees, which grew in the garden. "I read that under your holy tradition that negations have traditionally happened before the eyes of the Lords of Kobol and so I felt this would be the best place to talk."

"What are you?" stumbled the priest

"My name is Antheas and I am a member of the Nox, one of the five great races in the history of galaxy." explained Antheas with a warm friendly smile and a tone of voice that matched one a parent my use on a small child. "It is my hope that we are able to talk with your leaders here and find a way to bring this pointless war to a close."

"Your holies." said the highest ranking Colonial Officer "We have seen things which shouldn't be possible, we need to talk to the President now."

"I will call Military police and then get ahold of the government." Said the Priest his eyes not leaving Antheas, his faith the bed stone of his whole life told him that the person standing before him was impossible. The Colonials rushed out of the room leaving Antheas alone, he heard a large bar fall across the door. Antheas simply shrugged before going back to studying the plants.

**Meanwhile on Valhalla a meeting was taking place among the different middle range officers among the different armored units currently stationed on Valhalla. **The meeting room would not have looked out of place in any college classroom with a large screen with a projector, seats where set up in rows with each row slightly higher than the one before it.

Sitting among some of the other German officers was Major Jaeger, there was also officers from every ground unit on Valhalla along with some ranking officers from units preparing to move to the planet. Among those units, preparing to move in was the American 1st Armored Division, the Chinese 9th artillery division and the French 27th Mountain Infantry Brigade. All these nations had worked together at some point on Earth in the past few years. Operations in central Africa, the Middle East and central Asia had made each nation familiar with units from other nations.

"Alright everyone let's begin." said the United Kingdom Army General who was in charge of the land forces on Valhalla; he was under General Raj-Singh. At once, the room became silent, some of the people wore headphones, which allowed the translations for those who didn't understand English or had trouble following through the thick Scottish accent. "Now we have already had briefings about the possibility of the colonials unleashing either a bio attack or even a nuclear strike so now let's focus on their ground forces. We don't expect the Colonials to do anything so stupid as to launch a ground attack but we need to be ready in case they do."

"Now we have our special forces teams in the 12 colonies of Kobol have sent us intel about the ground forces." explained the General "The Standard Colonial tank is the T-35 Pallas, it's a heavy sucker nearly two and a half times as heavy as a Leopard with 13 inches of steal and composite armor. Unlike ours the armor while thicker in the front is abnormally thick on the sides and back as well. Even the top of the tank is thick by our standards."

"How big is the main gun?" inquired an American

"203 mm main gun with a 25 mm chain gun as a secondary weapon on the turret." explained the General, as the officers shared a glance. The tankers knew that a 25 mm chain gun was the same that could be found on the American Bradley fighting vehicle. "Some models also carry TOW missiles but those seem to be few and far between."

"That is a lot of fire power," stated Jaeger to the man beside him who nodded his head in agreement.

"The Pallas is heavily armored and carry some big guns but they are slow," reported the General "The top speed of the Pallas on the road is only 50 kilometers or 32 miles an hour on open flat ground."

The tankers almost laughed, the Leopard III the main tank of the Tau'ri and could go 125 kilometers or 77 miles an hour.

"Also from what we have been able to gather the tanks cannot fire on the move like ours can and from our information we predict that the tank can only carry between 20 and 25 shells for the main gun." explained the General as the Tankers all looked at each other, the same thought crossed all their minds. Either the intelligence were wrong which wasn't unheard of or the Colonials where idiots. Each Leopard held 50 roads for their main gun, normally 25 anti-tank or HEAT road and 25 high explosives, shooting on the move has been common among tanks for almost 40 years since the introduction of the Abrams in 1980.

"Now, the colonial are very skilled in the ability of their guns, we believe that the main gun of the Pallas has a max range of over 150 yards longer then the max range of the Leopard." explained the General

"Sir, what does our the computer say about the effectiveness of our rounds on the Colonial Armor and their rounds on us?" inquired Jaeger

"We don't have a good sample of the Colonial shells so we can't be sure but we estimate that our armor can stand up to their guns at range but the closer they are the more likely their rounds will pieced our armor." explained the General "Our rounds are the same however what we have is numbers. The colonial tanks also use auto loaders, which are slower than humans loading shells. The Colonials do not admass their armor on a scale the we are used to. The largest group of Colonial tanks we have seen in the field is eight tanks; normally they operate in ones and twos."

The meeting moved forward as they talked about the Colonial APC the Hoplon which looked like an old soviet BTR-70 only instead of eight wheels it was tracked and had a the same 25 mm chain gun that their tanks had as a secondary weapon. Like the Pallas the Colonial Hoplon was big, armored and slow. It was only a few miles per hour faster then the Pallas and was no match for the eight wheeled Cougar APC of the Tau'ri when it came to speed. While it had the Cougar beat in the size of its gun the Cougar carried multiple anti-vehicle missiles and even anti-air missiles while the Hoplon had none.

The Colonial multiple missile launcher looked like something out of Soviet Russia in WW2 and unlike the other colonials it was designed for speed. It would fire its missiles and move away before Cylon counter artillery missiles could hit them. In that way it was similar to the Tiger missile launcher only the Tiger's missiles where better guided and contained within the back part of the vehicle instead of open to the air.

The last vehicle they saw was the Colonial Phrygian, which looked so much like an American Humvee it was scary weird. The only difference seemed to be that the civilian model was closer to the military version on Earth then it was to the Colonial military version. The Colonial civilian version had almost the same speed, range and even armor as a military Humvee on Earth, while the military version looked like someone had slapped solid sheets of metal on the side of the vehicle. It had armor which went down almost to the ground and it held twin fifty caliber machine guns on a heavy totally enclosed turret. All that armor and with no increase in the power of the engine meant it was slow with a top speed of only 40 miles an hour on the highway.

By contrast, the Tau'ri Puma was lightly armored, with a single machine gun or other weapon in an open-air turret. What it lacked in armor it made up for in pure speed of over a 90 miles an hour and ability to go off road. It had become common occurrence that Pumas would somehow go "missing" only to reappear in a few hours covered in dirt and mud.

As for field guns that was where the Colonials gained the edge of the Tau'ri, their war with the Cylons who could hack into advanced at the time missiles had forced them to focus on guns that couldn't be hacked. So in this case the Colonial guns outranged the Tau'ri but because they were afraid of hacking they didn't use fire finding radar on a scale like the Tau'ri so while they have the range they were likely to miss their target. Strangely, the Colonials had no self-propelled guns and instead relied on towed guns that took time to set up. One thing the Colonials had that the Tau'ri didn't was what looked to be giant railroad guns which hadn't been used on Earth in any scale since the early days of WW2 but the Colonials still used them and had improved their range and speed of reload to some extent.

By the time the meeting was coming to an end, the Tau'ri officers got a sense of the Colonial way they fought on the ground. It was as if they had managed to merge WW1 and Napoleonic planning but there was no idea Blitzkrieg or deep strike tactics. Everything was slow, heavy armored and everything had to have a big gun, not even missiles. The Tau'ri military plan was based of speed and overwhelm firepower, to hit the enemy with so much speed that they would not know what happened until it was over. The only thing that really worried the man and women in the room was that the Colonials had a lot of their soldiers carrying anti-vehicle and anti-cylon weapons which could be very troublesome also any Colonial weapon could fire high explosive rounds which acted kind of like mini grenades. The range of their guns was worrisome as well but the speed the Tau'ri vehicles had would take away those advantages with ease.

**Armed Colonial Marines rushed toward the Temple of Apollo. **They were all ready for a massive firefight when they burst into the garden of Apollo only to find a figure stand by one of the statues of Apollo looking it in the same way that a person would look at a piece of art on the wall. His strange eyes did not show the relevance that was common among the colonial people who came to his holy place but it did show appearance for the workmanship in the bronze statue.

"So is your president here?" inquired Antheas to the armed men who surrounded him.

"You will come with us," stated the head of the team.

"No, I think now I would rather remain here," said Antheas

"We are going to bring you to him," explained a marine not realizing that it was next to impossible to lie to a Nox, they could natural see how pupils dilated when a person lied. They could hear the increase heart rate that happened as well when a person lied but these marine's hearts where already beating fast so that wasn't a sure sign.

"You are lying," said Antheas

"You don't have a choice," snapped a marine as he raised his rife in Antheas face.

"So young." said Antheas as he waved his hand, instantly all their rifles, side arms and even their knives disappeared in a faded purple light.

"What the frak?" cursed the marines only to have the weapons reappear with another wave of the hand.

"Teleportation technology." explained Antheas with a warm smile as he turned back to the statue. "Now do not worry, I will not hurt you. It is our highest held beliefs to never harm anyone for any reason. We teach the young how to be wise and you are very young. Now please allow me to speak with your president."

**A few miles away Major Adama and the other group of Colonials brought back from the Pegasus Galaxy and D'Anna from Valhalla was in an isolation room in a hospital. **Standing on the other side of the reinforced glass was his father along, Admiral Cain who was now the Secretary of Defense, standing in front of the two of them was the President and the new Vice President.

"That is impossible," said Cain "There is no way that they could have this Stargate thing, transporting things by a wormhole across the entire the length of a galaxy is impossible."

"That is what I thought but I have seen what else they are capable of and that makes it more believable," explained Lee Adama. "They have this simulator program that allowed me realist training in some of their aircraft and they are by far better than ours, I wouldn't be surprised if their ships are capable of pushing entire fleets aside with ease. Then there is the fact that they have access and are in the process of understanding and integrating the technology of two races who had millions of years of advancements."

"That is impossible, the holy scrolls state that there is no Alien life," stated Vice President Spiros

"I agree." confirmed Priestess Adrianna as the other people who had journeyed across the stars with her looked at her as if she was an idiot. "Major Adama even said it himself they have virtual reality programs that they could have put on us to make us see what they wanted us to see."

"That is impossible," countered Doctor Baltar

"Is it more possible then the technology we believe we saw." countered the Priestess "Beside they somehow made the journey back from the Pegasus galaxy a lot shorter, if they were capable of crossing the galaxy at that speed in the first place why waste the time going slowly."

"She has a point," admitted Boomer "I mean they could have waited until we are asleep or put knock out gas in our room."

"What about the Aliens I saw?" countered D'Anna "Frak, one of them even came back with us and is sitting in the Garden of Apollo."

"And I am sure they are as skilled with make up as our movie business." countered Vice President Spiros "Mr. President all the so called Aliens they showed us look very human like."

"True, but I still want to speak to this Alien, this Nox." stated President Adar

"Mr. President that is unwise." stated the Vice President "He may try something, you have to be protected allow me to go."

The President thought about it for a moment before nodding his constant.

"Very well, but I want Admiral Adama to go with you." ordered the President as Mr. Spiros nodded his own head.

"Now back to the things our cousins say they have is there anything you haven't told us that stand out in your mind?" inquired the President

"Yes, sir one of them told me that currently they only have five battleships and a single carrier but more are under construction," reported Lee Adama.

"That is very good to know," said Cain with a smile. "We outnumber them even more than I thought."

**The Black SUVs rolled down the road passing by huge shipyards cut deep into the ground of Valhalla. **Currently there was only six bays but the seventh and eighth bay was nearing completion with four may bays already under construction. The humanoid cylons eyes widened as they looked out the window of the car only to see the massive body of the German Battleship Bismarck rising from the bay. Beside it was the Indian Navy INS Shiva who was only about a third of the way done compared to the halfway finished Bismarck. The other four bays had ships which had only just been started, they were so early in construction that it was impossible to tell the difference between a battleship and a carrier. The only way to tell what the ship was that a massive cable hung over each bay with the ships home nation flag, the name of the ship, a banner with Revenge Valhalla and then the Tau'ri flag.

"You are capable of building ships on the ground?" inquired a two as he and the other Cylons walked down the bays. They could see men and women working on the ships, large pieces of the ships which had premade off site was being lowered into position by massive cranes.

"Yes, it makes assembly of them easier since we don't have to worry about someone cutting their space suit while they work in space," explained their guild as they passed by the two larger ships to the bays where construction had only just begun.

"Here we are building our second carrier, the USS Enterprise. The other ships the Chinese Battleship Dongji Long or Winter Dragon, the Turkish Suleiman, the Brazilian Sao Paulo have all started construction and we expect that within a week the next two bays will be ready and construction can begin on the Japanese Yamato Battleship and the Russian Russian Kinburn. We also have similar bays where the smaller Daedalus and other class ships are under construction."

"You are sure building a lot of ships." stated Cavil as he tried not to look on with wonder at the ships being constructed. He had seen the reports about how one of these Battleships had torn apart a Colonial fleet before pulling back, some of the Colonial expects believed they had forced the ship to fall back. He saw the truth, the ship's mission was to recover a smaller damaged ship with that done there was no need to stay around so it fell back of its own will.

"Well, all these ships where already ordered but our plan was build them over the course of four to five years, that has changed and everything is moving a lot faster." stated the guild. "The Bismarck will likely head out for its shake down in three or four months and within an hour of clearing the dock work will begin on the next ship. Likely either the British Battleship Prince of Wales or the third American Carrier, the Americans love their aircraft carriers."

**Back among the plants and statues in Apollo, Vice President Spiros and Admiral Adama moved toward something that their faith said was impossible but still it stood there.**

"Mr. Antheas, my name is Admiral William Adama of the Colonial Navy." started Adama as the creature looked at him with kind eyes. Eyes that reminded the old admiral of a kindly old grandfather waiting to see what demand their grandchild was about to make of them. "I know you wanted to speak with our president but do to possible threats that can't happen."

"I am no threat to you," explained Antheas "The Nox have not waged a war since before we discovered space flight and that we before the rise of the Ancients in this galaxy. We are peaceful but I understand your worries."

"I am Vice President Spiros and I speak for the President and all of humanity," said Spiros in a sure voice as he glared at the alien as if the man had spit in his face.

"All humanity?" inquired Antheas with a slight nod. "I see, well that is clearly not the case since the Tau'ri stand against you along with the countless of human worlds spread out across this galaxy by the Goa'uld but that is beside the point. What needs to be found is a way to end this pointless conflict before any more lives are loss."

"I agree this needs to end." stated Spiros "All the Tau'ri need to do is accept the truth and rejoin the family."

"Sometimes the young do not see the truth," answered Antheas

"Yes, the Tau'ri do not see the truth." Confirmed Spiros

"There is much truth the Tau'ri have not seen but I was speaking of you." explained Antheas "You don't seam to understand the storm that is waiting to unleash upon you. The Tau'ri have done much to help this galaxy, they have cured plagues and built schools. They have saved people and have brought down empires which stood for thousands of years. They are angry, they are powerful and all their rage is pointed right at you. You started a fight that you cannot win and will only come out badly for you. You have no allies to aid you, the Tau'ri have allies but do not require their help."

"If they don't need help to beat us why are they suing for peace?" countered Spiros with a cocky grin.

"They are not, they are only giving me a chance to bring you to your senses before they have to do anything they may regret in the future." explained Antheas as he looked at the religious hardline man. "The Tau'ri people are angry and rightfully so but they still have to answer to the rest of the galaxy and to us, they are the 5th race in the alliance of great races and we are another of those races."

"A likely story, tell me something Antheas if that is your name what are you really?" inquired Spiros as Antheas looked at him confused for a moment. "You are just some actor in makeup am I right."

"I am not an actor; I am a member of the Nox a race which was old when the Ancients first arrived in this galaxy. We have seen many young races become old and die out, our advice is something a wise man uses." explained Antheas "Now I know the Tau'ri have sent you a list of demands that had to be meet in order for peace to happen. Those conditions still stand however while the Tau'ri demand a trail for the attack on Valhalla, since the Tau'ri blood is boiling they have agreed that the Nox will hold the trail and they will accept any rulings they come down. Other issues such as the size of your fleet and the amount if any nuclear weapon you have can be debated on until common ground is reached. We will serve as mediators and as a neutral voice."

"You are their allies, you will side with them." stated Spiros as he brushed the idea aside. "Besides following the holy scrolls you should be under our control."

"How do you believe that?" inquired Antheas honest confused by the statement. "Your own holy scrolls say I can't be alive but yet I am under your control, that seems like a contradiction."

"The Holy Scrolls state that the Lords of Kobol made the universe for humanity and that humanity alone will rule over the stars." stated Spiros as if it was a fact. "Even if you are an alien which I don't believe, you are under our control since the all the galaxy was give to us by the Lords of Kobol."

Antheas just looked at the man for a moment.

"So because your holy book says that the entire galaxy belongs to you, it does?" inquired Antheas "Is that what you are telling me?"

"That is correct." Stated Spiros

"We have traditions dating back millions of years before the rise of the Gau'old and we were exploring this galaxy before the arrival of the Ancients." stated Antheas "You have a book that is only a few thousand years old, also why is Valhalla worth all this bloodshed. Even by your own standards you left it 2000 years ago, long enough to loss claim to it."

"We can't loss claim, it was given to us by the Lords of Kobol and it is Kobol not Valhalla. We will remove that name to the enemy of the Lords of Kobol." stated Spiros "Enemies such as Thor and the Asgard."

"I see." said Antheas as he took a breath. As he did, the snap filled the air as Spiros raised a small switch blade knife up to the Nox's throat.

"Now either you are spreading lies about the faith by pretending to be a alien or you really are an alien either way you are an adfront to the Lords of Kobol, get off this world." stated Spiros. "Tell your people, tell the entire galaxy and most of all our cousins that we will never give up. We will never surrender because we know our cause is blessed by the Lords of Kobol and we are coming not just for our cousins but everyone else."

"Very well, sometimes the very young do not do as they are told and only when…" started Antheas only to have Spiros hand move forward to stab the Nox in the neck, only to have the Nox disappear before his eyes. This caused both Colonial eyes to widened, Spiros from the man disappearing before his eyes and Adama because of the attempted murder he had just seen.

Floating just above their heads in a cloaked ship, Antheas lowered his head in shame and defeat. He had tried; he had tried so hard to bring the two sides together in a way that could possibly make a peace. The Tau'ri had given ground, while they were not happy about it that had shown that while still young they were maturing and showing the great promise that the Asgard had seen in them. The Colonials where moving the other way, to a more hardline stance, one that would turn not only the Tau'ri but the rest of the galaxy against them if taken to the next level. There would be more blood spilled and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He turned toward the computer monitor, the ships cameras had recorded the whole thing, he had hoped it would show the beginning of peace to the races of galaxy but it would show the opposite. On some levels he felt sorry for the Colonials who even after being warned where running straight into a fight against what either was or was soon going to be the most powerful force in two galaxies. The ship left Caprica without even being seen by the Colonials to make the journey back to Valhalla to share the sad news before making the long journey back to the Nox home world of Gaia.

"Maybe after they see more of the Tau'ri power they will grow up," said Antheas to himself but he did not think it likely. It is hard to convince those who believe their god or gods are with them that they are wrong. "Now it is up to the Tau'ri to show how mature they are."

**Well I hope you liked this chapter and how I had Mr. Spiros react to meeting an actual alien, I felt that he would try to find a way to get around what his eyes where seeing. Now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75. **


	47. Chapter 47

**Chapter 47 A History Lesson**

President Richard Adar could not believe what he was hearing as he sat in the small office of the Presidential suite of a hotel outside of what remained of Caprica City. From this view he would have been able to see all the historical landmarks that people from 12 different worlds come to see, now most of those buildings where rubble and smoke still rose from smoldering fires.

"You did what?" inquired President Adar as he looked at his Vice President and Admiral Adama who had returned faster than he thought they would from the meeting with the Nox. The president would not even be here for another day, his protection detail kept him on the move to avoid any chance of the Tau'ri launching another assassination attempt on him. They kept him on the move, since a moving target was harder to hit, he was somewhat thankful that his wife had died last year. Moving all the time and the strain of dealing with what had to be done would have killed her.

"I pulled a knife on the fake." explained Spiro "Then he disappeared."

"Wait, he disappeared?" inquired the President as he flipped through a report from a marine who had entered the garden to restrain the Nox. "The marine said the alien claimed to have teleportation technology? You saw this?"

"No, I said he disappeared teleportation is something from a sci-fi bad book." countered Spiros with contempt in his voice.

"Then how did he disappear Sir?" inquired Admiral Adama "If teleportation is real then it would explain how the Tau'ri are getting nukes into our battlestars, they could just appear and seconds later blow the ship up."

"Admiral Adama, while I consider your point that teleportation could explain that how would that even be possible?" countered Spiros. "What is easier to understand that the Tau'ri got spies into the military or are using Cylon supporters to do their dirty work, or that they can tear apart every atom in a human and transport it all to a new location and put everything back together in seconds. As for the so called alien it was likely just a hologram, we never actually touched him and the Tau'ri have shown that they are skilled in that."

"Mr. Spiros, get out," ordered the President as Spiros turned to leave but he stopped at the door.

"Mr. President, you should know that the offer for peace would never pass the Quorum. We are committed to this fight until the bitter end, we will have Kobol and we will have Earth return to the fold." stated Spiros before leaving.

"Mr. President, permission to speak freely?" inquired Adama as the President waved his hand, telling him to go ahead. "Sir, he should be removed from his office."

"I wish to the Lords of Kobol that I could." admitted the President as he looked out the window toward the remains of the capital. "You know how our system works Admiral, I may be president but if 3/4ths of the Quorum votes for a no confidence vote I will be removed from office."

"Spiros faction doesn't have that amount of control in the Quorum." countered Adama, there was multiple political parties on every world but the generally fell into two major camps. Adar's camp which was less religious had a slight majority in control of the Quorum but not enough to do everything they wanted done.

"He used to not be, but with so many people experiencing a religious rebirth they could remove me from office," stated Adar with a shake of his head. "Frak, the Quorum is trying to change the name from the Twelve Colonies of Kobol to the Thirteen Colonies of Kobol. They are running with the idea of this is a Civil War and we need to save the Articles of Colonization's by bring Earth and Kobol back into the fold."

"I hadn't heard that," admitted Adama "I have been focusing on reactivating the mothball fleet."

"It just broke this morning," explained Adar "Frak they have multiple religious leaders saying that if a solider dies trying to reclaim Kobol, all their sins will be forgiven and they will enter the fields of Elysiam and be with the Lords of Kobol and all the good souls. I didn't want a religious war but that is what I have gotten."

"Sir, I hate to say this but if you remove him and then are removed in kind then he will still be out of office and then the Secretary of State will be the President." Advised the Admiral as Adar shook his head.

"No, that is the order of secession if everyone is killed. If a no confidence vote is held then the Quorum will select a President from the Cabinet members and safe money is that they would pick Cain because Spiros will through his support behind her." stated Adar as Admiral Adama gulped. "Would you want that mad woman being in charge of the entire colonial military?"

"No." admitted Adama "She is as strong headed as Spiros but I will say she isn't as religious as him but she is more vindictive."

"And she is one of the sane compared to some of the general population." stated Adar as he looked down at a report and found the paper he wanted. "We have had thousands of kids, trying to sign up for the military to fight. I am not talking about 17 year old kids who shave a month or two to say they are 18 but we had an 8 year old girl sign up sign up claiming to be 18."

"Where was this Sagittarian?" inquired Adama, Sagittarian and Gemenon where the hot bed for religious strength.

"Virgon." answered the President as Adama blinked "We are on track to have the same number of people in uniform as we did at the height of the Cylon war in four months. We may actually beat it and if we do that means almost a 3rd of our entire population will be in uniform either on the front or in a call up ready."

Adama blinked, he had not seen the number of new recruits that was a different department but he knew that the Colonial Military had two general levels. The activity duty, which served on the front lines and the reserve force. The reserve force went through all the training a normal person would in their field but instead of going to the front they would go home, do their jobs but they could be called up at any moment to fight.

"The people are more upset about the Tau'ri holding a religious ceremony for their dead then they are about all those people dying." added Adar "Nothing short of victory will stop the religious elements from putting down their guns, the Tau'ri didn't help with that broadcast of theirs."

"Sir, what they see is someone slapping them across the face with their faith and those who aren't even that religious are being rallied by those people who are offended," explained Adama. "Also Sagittaron and Gemenon are the among the most heavy populated planets in the colonies and they are the most religious. Caprica was bombed and Tauron, well Tauron just likes to fight."

"True." Admitted the President "Admiral, I would like you to keep speaking to me frankly but right now I need to look over some reports."

"Yes, sir." said Adama as he snapped to attention before leaving the room. With him gone Adar looked down at a report which estimated the population of the Tau'ri based off the idea that they had most three worlds. Even with three world, they estimated that they had the Tau'ri out manned 8 to 1 and in ships they likely had more. The problem was that the Tau'ri had distance on their side and most importantly technology. Some of the technology described by the returning officers was almost impossible to believe but yet he feared it was.

He placed that file away and picked up the damage report done by the Tau'ri terrorist strikes across the 12 colonies. In the report was recommendations from the Secretary of Justice who worried about the treatment of their one Tau'ri prisoner. The Tau'ri had said in their message that they would mirror any treatment of POW that the Colonials did to their soldiers on the captured Colonial POW. The Secretary of Justice said it was possible that the Tau'ri see their captured Russian Solider as a POW and not the terrorist he is under colonial law.

In his mind, the President understood his point but he just couldn't see it. This man had carried out what was clearly a terrorist attack and he and others had to be considered Terrorist. The Tau'ri could not be not that different from them that he would consider their action anything but terrorism. With that thought in mind he signed off on permission for hardened integration process of the prisoner if he didn't start talking.

He turned to the report about the production of chemical and biological weapon protection equipment. The local city governments of major cities had started handing out gas masks, which look like large pieces of paper but unfolded out into gas masks, which would filter most of the common gas for 8 hours. Long enough to escape cities, the issue was that most of these masks where old and mass producing billions of new ones took time. He then looked at the time table for the gas attack on Kobol, the first drone with the gas should be launching within the next 18 hours and then it is a five-day journey to Kobol. Since the Tau'ri promised to strike if the Colonials used Nuclear, biological or Chemical weapons with their own then he could expected a Tau'ri gas attack within a couple of hours after they hit.

"I will have to address the people after we know that the bomb as reached its target so that the people can be ready." whispered the President to himself as he signed off on the attack. The gas attack was only part of the first assault; the drones would carry nuclear warheads to go after Tau'ri warships in orbit and dropping Hade's firebombs on the fields of Kobol. The Tau'ri had made it clear that nuclear weapons against warships and military targets was something they would accept and in their message they never said anything about Hades Fire. In fact according to one of the reports the Tau'ri don't even have Hades fire, they had something similar named Wildfire in a fictional show the officer had watched called Game of Thrones and the Tau'ri where surprised that the Colonial military had it.

"So maybe, if we hit them hard we can end this before it goes beyond that." stated Adar as he wrote down a new message on a piece of paper. He handed it over to an aid who scanned it, it was an order to Admiral Nagata to have her attach a peace message to the last drone, saying that unless the Tau'ri came to the table the attacks will keep coming. "Make sure Admiral Nagata sees that within the hour."

"Yes, sir." said the aid as he moved out of the room.

**On Valhalla General O'Neill was enjoying a working lunch with his old team, Teal'c, Daniel and Sam where enjoying the view from the second tallest building in Valhalla. **The top floor was the Tau'ri officer club and a popular spot for working business dinners and lunches.

"So they actually pulled a knife on a Nox?" inquired Daniel stunned that someone would do that to the peaceful race.

"They did and they have it all on video." confirmed Jack "I wouldn't be surprised if we get some help from the free Jaffa. They threatened the Nox and claimed to have control over everyone in the galaxy."

"I wouldn't be so sure." Countered Sam as Teal'c nodded his head.

"Indeed, they see the Colonial as your mess and they will let you deal with them." explained Teal'c "They will only come in if the Colonials appear to be more then you can handle"

"That makes some sense," admitted Jack as their food came, he decided to turn to a different topic. "So Space Monkey how is digging in the dirt going?"

"A lot better since I got vindicated when the Stargate program came out." explained Daniel with a small laugh. "I got a whole bunch of emails and letters from the people who called me a crockpot for years saying how sorry they are. I have been nominated for multiple awards and honors; I will go down in history."

"Another good from the discloser of the Stargate." laughed Sam before shaking her head. "Hell, I got a message from my hometown, it seems that they are building a new High School and want to name it after me."

"I am betting within a few years we will all have high schools named after us," confirmed Jack before looking out the window. "I even had people from both political parties come to me asking if I wanted to run for President."

"My God, you in the oval office what a horrifying thought." added Daniel as everyone laughed aside from Teal'c who hardly ever laughed but his friends knew he was laughing on the inside. Then the topic turned back to the war.

"When will the fleet return from Pegasus front?" inquired Daniel

"In 48 hours, but once they return they will need to be rearmed and equipped to fight the colonials." explained Sam "They used a lot of missiles against the Wraith and they headed right here instead of stopping to resupply. Then they will be ready to fight but I don't know how this will end."

"Me neither, the Tau'ri are hard core religious nut cases. Makes me kind of sad we disabled the abilities of the Ark of Truth to change a person's mind," added Jack "I know that raises a large moral question but short of beating them into a pulp I don't know what can to force them to the peace table."

"They just keep think Valhalla is theirs by right," stated Sam

"Well on some levels they are not wrong, their ancestors did come from here just like the Cylons." added Daniel as he took a bite from his sandwich. He took a moment to chew before going on. "Turns out that the ancestors of the human Cylons who went to the second Earth, are actually descendants of experiments done by Zeus's head scientist, Athena who was trying to find a way to make an immortal army of Jaffa clones that could download their memories into new bodies."

"I could see how that could be useful." admitted Teal'c "It takes decades to train a Jaffa warrior to fight, downloading all that knowledge into a new body would eliminate that."

"Yes, but they didn't want to test it on Jaffa so they tested it on humans. They rebelled and escaped along with the technology on a ship and formed their own colony. That is what actually got the Asgard's attention and brought them to destroy Zeus and his forces." explained Daniel "Well that is what the records we found in the operation center of Athena. It is also kind of interesting because the Colonials have made the operation center which was where Athena did all her medical experiments into the Athena Opera house. Another sign of how words can change over time."

Jack looked down at his watch; he knew what was going to happen in a few hours, only a handful of people knew when the operation to take Nysa would begin.

**A two colonial marines moved across the surface of Nysa dressed in their combat space suits. Each of them knew that while the micro world did have an atmosphere it was so thin as to be no existence**. If they removed their helmets, they would be as dead as if they had opened it up in space. Above their heads, the Battlestar Erebus was unloading something that was above their pay grade. The commander who had always been laid back had suddenly become a hard ass much to the annoyance of the men under him.

"So where is this thing?" inquired one of the Marines

"Right over here." said the other as his flashlight cut into the darkness. The only lights out here which provided enough to see was artificial, the distance starlight was beautiful but not enough to see by. Even so it was nice to look up and see the light of countless stars which could be seen here unlike any place on the 12 worlds. The plant's gravity was strong enough so that they walk across the surface without bouncing too much but they used gravity plats at the base to artificial gravity. The marines walked around a small mound of rocks to see a large box with a small dish sticking out of the top. The first marine knelt down and opened the small computer, which was built into the broadcaster. It took him only a few moments to see the problem.

"Yes, bad broadcaster." stated the marine as tapped his wireless broadcast. "It's a bad broadcaster; I am going to try to get it working before we have to drag it back to base."

"Understood." said a voice over the wireless.

"Is that common?" inquired the other marine

"It is common kid, have to replace these things every couple of weeks." Stated the marine "Dust or a micro asteroid must have gotten to it. Believe me once you are here more than a couple of days you will come to hate these things."

"What are they even for?" inquired the younger marine as he looked out over the barren rocks that made up this micro planet.

"Well they are backups for the main one and they are suppose to pick up enemy wireless broadcasts." Explained the older marine as suddenly the broadcaster started working. "Thank the Lords of Kobol; we don't have to drag the fraker back to base. Come on kid lets go home."

"Alright." said the younger marine as they head back toward base, not realizing that they were being followed by a fire team of US army rangers.

Thanks, to their space suits which where far more flexible and stronger then their Colonial counterpart the Americans where able to follow the two marines back to one of the entrees to an anti-air missile platform which was mostly built under ground with ease. The two marines disappeared inside the airlock as the Rangers spread out and got into position to take down the missile center.

"This is Red Wolf 1 to Yorktown." reported the ranger commander as he and his own strike team moved to the top of a small rise. From their location, they could see the main runway of Nysa base, part of the plan was for Owls to land on that runway with airborne soldiers to help take the base. "The runway door is open, looks like they are unloading something from that battlestar. Does this change our plans?"

The commander had to wait a couple of seconds for the response from the Enterprise and the attack group lined up to take the base.

"No, processed as plan," stated the General's voice as the Commander nodded his head before switching radios to his men.

"We attack in 30, be ready." ordered the Commander as another Raptor flew down from the Battlestar carrying something.

**Secretary Helena Cain was back in her office looking through the multiple files, which covered her desk, while she had a chair she preferred to stand and so she did.** She was looking down at the reports, which sat on her desk; she was used to reading papers like this as she stood in the CIC of her battlestar. Unlike there she held a knife in her hand flipping it open and close every so often the snap of the sound filling the air. If she were standing in the CIC someone would have reported her because while having a knife was acceptable pulling it out was not. Her mind was trying to process all the information that the people who had been sent as envoys to the Tau'ri had given them. Some of the news was actually good; the Tau'ri had a limited fleet with only 6 capital ships equal in size to a battlestar. They where fighting a war in another galaxy which meant their resources where stretched. Those where the two brightest rays of light in a very dark report. The envoys claimed that the Tau'ri battleships had capabilities such as launching countless drones and firing bolts of energy that cut through ships. Well the beams was something they already knew but it seemed that it took between 60 and 90 seconds for them to recharge. While all the information about their ships capabilities was good, the thing she kept jumping to was the idea of a stargate. It had not seemed possible when they had first told her about it but it kept coming up.

The moment she had returned from the meeting with the group from the Tau'ri she had pulled up a computer file all the recon photos of Kobol. The top people in the recon business had gone over each photo and while a lot of it was nothing but forests and strange wildlife there where things they had mapped out. They had mapped towns, highways and cities with ease and even buildings that provided unities and the like. They had marked military targets like fighter bases and army bases; they had found some of the Tau'ri military factories as well. That little discovery was mostly due to the fact that the Tau'ri had multiple new vehicles such as tanks or aircraft sitting out in open air yards. Mines and other means to make war were also marked including the Tau'ri shipyards which sat on the ground, some with ships being built in them.

There were still many things that was unknown on the surface and at the top of the list caused her to stop and reconsider her stance on the possible existence of this Stargate. The image which stood out was one a strange object surrounded by four forts with as many defense points pointing toward the object as pointing away from it. It was if the Tau'ri both wanted to defend the object and stop something coming from the object. From the shadow on the ground, it appeared to be a disk of some kind but that was not for sure. There was some sign of vehicles rolling up to the object and away from it based on tracks of dirt on what looked to be a roadway there was also a large yard nearby full of trains.

Her mind told her it was impossible, that there was no way such a thing could be possible but their was just enough evidence for her to reconsider the possible. If such a thing as a Stargate was possible, then it changed everything with a wormhole to Earth, the Tau'ri could flood Kobol with fresh troops and supplies. That would make invading the planet much harder. That being said if they took this gate they would by pass the distance between Kobol and Earth making an invasion of Earth itself possible.

A knock at her door caused her to look up.

"Enter." ordered Cain as the Marine general she had ordered only yesterday to begin mapping out an attack plan for Kobol entered. He snapped to attention which Cain returned before giving a slight nod a sign he was to speak.

"Madam, I have the early estimates of the supplies we need to carry out an invasion of Kobol and if we pull our defense line from a possible Cylon attack we can get enough ships to pull it off." reported the Marine "I don't recommend it…"

"We aren't doing it." reported Cain as the Marine let out a breath of relief. "Yet, the President wants more information about the Tau'ri positions and strength of the their fleet and while I planned to gather that information while on route to Kobol he may be right and it is better to wait."

"Yes, ma'am this would allow us more time to train the new recruits and for the people in the navy to get more ships out of mothball for the operation," added the General

"General, given the information we currently have how many divisions would you want to go up against the Tau'ri forces on the ground?" inquired Cain

"Well our intel shows that they are heavy in tanks and other armored vehicles but given the distance they would have to cover before reaching any place we land that shouldn't be much of an issue. The nearest armored group to our possible landing zone is over 70 miles away and that would take almost 3 hours for them to reach us by then we will be firmly on the ground." stated the General "We can counter them with more anti-vehicle weapons carried by our foot soldiers."

"Good, now three of our New Hercules class Battlestars should be ready in 4 or 5 months will that be enough time to get your marines ready plus train up more groups?" inquired Cain

"Yes, Ma'am." confirmed the General "I was speaking with some of my counterparts in the army and we believe the Tauron would be the best place to assembly our forces and train them for the attack. The open fields are similar to what we see in a large part of Kobol."

"Very well, I will bring this up to the President," confirmed Cain before turning to another report. "We still haven't learned anything from our Prisoner, that needs to change."

"We are changing our style, our original style didn't seem to have an effect on him." explained the General

"I expect results soon," ordered Cain as she snapped the knife close.

**Senior Sergeant Adrik Drugov of the Russian Spetsnaz force was strapped to a chair in the same room where he had broken the colonial's arm.** The integrators had moved on from shoving his face in ice water and hitting him to make him talk to trying to freeze him while preventing him from sleeping. No colonial had entered the room in the past few hours with the only clue of life outside the room being a load speaker which would turn on whenever he closed his eyes for too long. The other sign of life was the sound of the ac which brought the room down to a level that made seeing his breath ease.

Drugov almost laughed, it was just the bad luck of the Colonials to take a Spetsnaz as prisoner all this was part of their training. Drugov had the extra benefit; he had grown up in a small town just south of the Arctic Circle in the middle of the Ural Mountains so he had a different definition of cold then what the colonials did. To his amazement the temperature, which had been hovering just above freezing, began to warm up as a man walked in carrying a briefcase, he was dressed in a heavy coat but didn't seam to take note of the shirtless Drugov.

"Now Senior Sergeant Drugov I am here to talk to you." introduced the man from Colonial intelligence "We have learned some things from studying you, first we no longer believe that beating you will get us anywhere."

"In other words you can't find someone dumb enough to use me as a punching bag after I broke the other man's arm," stated Drugov

"You could say that," admitted the man as Drugov took note of the change, he had seen this coming they were now going to try to gain his friendship to get information that way. It tended to work for those who were not trained to be careful about what they say, but it worked both ways he could dig for information. It was time to dance the dance of words to find out which one of them would be digging up information.

"Tell me something." started Drugov "How do you expect to win this war?"

"I could ask you the same thing we are 12 worlds you are nowhere near the equal to us in size." countered the man from Colonial Intelligence.

"Before I can answer that answer me this question before your war with the Cylons what was your bloodiest war?" inquired Drugov as the man blinked, the Spetsnaz could see that he was searching for any possible way for the information to be used against him but finding none he answered.

"That would be the 5th Tauron World War about 100 years ago right before they joined the 12 colonies of Kobol united government." stated the man "I believe that was over 7.5 million dead in six years."

"And during your war with the Cylons how many died?" inquired Drugov

"That was our bloodiest war, 25 million dead in a conflict that lasted eight years that raged over every world." stated the man as Drugov grinned. "That was almost 1% of our population at the time."

"Wow, you people are more screwed then I thought." laughed Drugov as the man's eyes narrowed "Let me tell you something, a little bit about the history of Earth. We fought in so many bloody wars that 25 million is just a number to us. During our second World War which was about 80 years ago we killed around 80 million people within 6 years of war. That was about 3% of our population at the time and we didn't get nukes until the end of that war."

The colonial eyes widened as Drugov grinned, he decided to twist the verbal knife.

"Hell in the battle of Stalingrad I believe almost 2 million people died in that battle alone. Since World War Two we have waged war across our world killing millions in places the Middle East, Africa and Asia. We know war better then you could possibly know it." stated Drugov as the colonial gulped at the statement. "We have firebombed cities, we have used poison gases on a massive scale and we have even dropped nuclear bombs on cities full of people. Do you really think you and your people who haven't seen real war in 40 plus years can stand against us?"

"You are still only one world, we are 12 worlds." said the Intelligence officer as Drugov shrugged.

"I see more targets," stated Drugov with a grin.

"Your lying." stated the Intelligence officer as he composed himself. "80 million dead, no society would stand for something like that. We came to peace with the Cylons after our people agreed that we couldn't accept any more deaths and the Cylons realized that they couldn't beat us."

"The thing is you can't beat us," stated Drugov

"When we meet you on the field of honor we will defeat you because we have better men, better equipment and most of all the Lords of Kobol on our side," countered the officer

"Wow, you sound like someone from the 1800s when men would march out in columns and fire at each other." Laughed Drugov as he imagined how these colonials would deal with what the people of Earth consider war. "I will tell you one last thing and you better go tell your bosses, we don't care about honor we only care about winning. By your standards we will do the most dishonorable under handed things but in the end it will not matter. You will loss."

"I don't think so, now lets begin." Said the man as he pulled out some photos and placed them on the table. There was blurry images, it took him a moment to realize that it was images of Valhalla. He saw Leopard III tanks, Condor Bombers and other vehicles and aircraft sitting on the ground. The images were pixilated like it was taken by a satellite from the 1970s or 1980s. It was actually hard for him to tell the difference between some of the vehicles. "Now tell me about this and remember if you not answer me then we can start beating you again or leaving you in the cold."

Drugov simply grinned as the intelligence officer began to press him for information and in response; all he got was blank looks.

**The night was dark and full of terrors for the eight-year-old boy as he looked out the window of his mother's car at the thick woods. **The woods had so much mystery for him; it was a place of mystery and of legendary creatures. With the return of the lost tribe of Earth, it was a time to keep an eye out for other legendary creatures such as the satyrs, griffins and unicorns. The little boy looked out the window hoping to see the creatures in the books he loved in the thick woods of Sagittarian.

"You should be asleep," said his mother as they made another turn on the road. As the made, the turn flashing yellow lights pierced the darkness of the night. Standing in the road was a single military Phrygian, three soldiers dressed for battle but with their rifles, hanging over shoulder straps stood in the roadway. None of them was even in the vehicle whose massive machine gun poked out, the orange safety plug still in the barrel. One of them looked up as the car came to a stop; he tossed his smoke away and moved toward the mother and son. His mother pushed the button and the window came down.

"Sorry but the base is on lock down for training, you have to come back another time." explained the guard

"But we live on base, my husband is stationed here." explained his mother as she pulled out her military family ID card, she handed it through the window to the MP who looked at the photo before looking back at the woman.

"Hold on a second, we have a list of people we are allowed to pass." said the MP before turning toward another one of the soldiers. "Frank, get the list and get over here."

"Coming." said another of the soldiers as the MP turned back toward the mother and son.

"Sorry about this, protocols." apologized the MP

"I understand, like I said my husband is…" started his mother as a strange sound filled the air, suddenly from the tree line bolts of energy shot forward hitting the three soldiers where they stood. All three fell to the ground; his mother was at a loss for words as her son leaned forward to get a better view of the tree line where the beams had come from. Then he saw him, a pale shadow amongst the trees, he was tall and dressed in black but his white hair framed the outline of his greenish skin. It moved toward their car, a strange weapon in his hands as he got closer more details stuck in his young mind. There was two holes on his cheeks and what at first he thought of as a tattoo around one of his eyes. He had a short beard and his black clothing looked segmented like armor.

That is when his mother saw the creature; her eyes widened as she looked at the creature which came to a stop over the solider had been at their window. He looked toward the two of them in the vehicle before moving away from the solider and toward them.

His mother was too scared to move while her son reached for a video camera and hit the record button as the creature reached the open drive side window. He centered the image getting a good view of the creature in the lights from the different vehicles.

"Good evening." it said in a deep voice "I am sorry for the inconvenience, here I think this is yours."

He extended his arm to show that he held the military family ID card. His mom was too scared to move so the creature reached over and placed it on the armrest. That is when he saw the book of legendary creatures he had been reading and that the boy was recording him. The creature smiled for the camera as he took the book and began to flip through the pages. "Tell me what is your name child?"

"Robert," answered the boy as his mother finally snapped out of it, which is when she realized that this creature was talking to her son.

"Good name, now tell me one thing before I let you go according to your book what am I?" inquired Todd

"I would say you are a Keres here to take the souls of the evil to Tartarus but they are supposed to be red skinned with white fire like hair but you don't have that." explained the Robert "So I am not sure what you are."

"A wise human, knows when he doesn't know something." said the creature as he flipped through the book before pulling out a small pen from one of his belt and writing a quick note he handed the book back. "Here I wrote in on a blank page."

The boy opened the book making sure the video was still locked on the creature.

"Wraith?" inquired Robert "You are a Wraith?"

"Yes, that is my race but humans have named me Todd." explained Todd "Now, I recommend that you and your mother leave, I wouldn't want there to be any complaints when I feed."

"Feed?" inquired Robert as Todd pulled his gun again and shot the guards to make sure they stayed down.

"Yes, I eat humans and these three men are on the menu tonight." explained Todd "Now go, before I change my mind."

Robert's mother did not have to be told again as she gunned the car around the Military vehicle, Robert spun around to look out of the rear window. In the darkness he could see Todd was on one knee over one of the soldiers, he was raising his hand as the car turned a corner and the wraith disappeared from view.

**Well I hope you liked this chapter, next chapter the fight starts up again. Until then keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	48. Chapter 48

**Chapter 48 Nysa**

The sun was rising over Caprica city as Admiral Adama sat in an officer's club in the city of Phoebus, Phoebus was a sister city of Caprica City and sat less than 90 miles away from the Capital of the 12 colonies. It was so close and so many small and medium size towns sat on the highways between the cities that some even considered them the same city. Since Caprica City had been hit by the Tau'ri most of the government offices had moved to Phoebus while the rebuilding went on.

The office club had the feel of what a Tau'ri would call a gentlemen's club, hard dark wood panels covered the wall and multiple private booths where built into the wall. A large bar was already open and the officers who had been up all night on duty where enjoying a drink and the officers going in to work where having their breakfast. It was an unofficial rule that while in this room their would be no saluting and no pulling rank on anything of importance, this was a place to relax. Even so Admiral William Adama couldn't relax across from him were two officers he knew well, Lieutenant Karl Agathon and Lieutenant Sharon Valeri and another officer he should have known a lot better, his estranged son Captain Lee Adama.

All of them had ordered breakfast but with Alcoholic drinks that they wouldn't normally drink so early in the morning.

"So how bad is it really?" inquired Bill Adama to the other officers.

"Bad, I don't care what the priestess claims there is no way that what we saw was virial reality." stated Lee as he pushed his anger against his father for his brother's death to the side. "We are in a very dangerous state. We need to make peace and fast."

"And it got worse our vice president tried to kill that Nox you came with." said Bill as all three of their eyes widened.

"Why wasn't the Secretary of State talking to the Nox not the vice President?" inquired Sharon

"He is on Virgon at the moment." explained the Admiral "And the Vice President offered to go to keep the President safe."

"What will the President do about that?" inquired Sharon

"Nothing." admitted the admiral with a shake of his head. "Spiros is too well connected, the people are too eager to reclaim Kobol and they believe that this war will be generally very quick and bloodless."

"It will be bloodless," said Karl as the others looked at him. "For the Tau'ri, they have technology we couldn't even dream of. We keep doing mental leaps to try to get around the edge they have. It is like we can't accept the fact that they are as far ahead of us as they really are."

Admiral Adama nodded his head.

"When the Nox disappeared before our eyes he said that the Tau'ri must have set up some of their holographic technology like they showed at the stadium show." explained Admiral Adama "Even after the marines reported that their weapons disappeared and the Nox said they had been teleported, he and others believe that is impossible."

"I admit I didn't see any sign of teleportation from the Tau'ri but they could have been hiding that from us." explained Karl "And they shut up about everything once they found at about the attack on their world. Before that they would do a wink and a nod and tell us some things that we likely wouldn't have found out officially."

"The only advantage we have is numbers." stated Lee Adama "And if their technology edge it will not matter."

"How is the fleet coming along?" inquired Karl as Admiral Adama leaned back a bit, he could not tell them the official numbers that was classified.

"It is a major task but we are making progress and now we have ordered nine more Hercules Class battlestars and that is in addition to the three that are already nearing being finished." Reported Admiral Adama as he thought about the three massive ships which were still under construction.

The Hercules class Battlestars was going to replace the Galactica class battlestar, which is own ship the Galactica was the last active ship before they where reactivated by the Tau'ri threat. The Hercules class battlestar was going to be 5,120 ft. long, 2,080 wide and 725 ft. tall. They were larger than the Galactica and carried three times as many vipers and Raptors with four times as many guns, the armor was thicker and yet taking out the pilots needed to fly the spacecraft required less crew. It also had three FTL jump drives.

Before the arrival of the Tau'ri the plan was to have the first of these ships, the Hercules ready for testing within 9 months with the Atalanta and the Achilles following within a year. Now they would be building nine more giant ships and likely more. Now the Hercules was going to be ready in 2 months and the Atalanta and Achilles would be ready in 4 months. The other ships had yet to be named and had no period to be finished but during the Cylon War they had produced ships at an unbelievable fast rate.

**The situation at Nysa was getting busier and busier but yet some basic needs needed to be taken care of.**

"Frank, get some coffee!" yelled a colonial marine lieutenant as he sat behind a desk watching the DRADIS screen. Normally he would have gotten up and walked down the hallway to the breakroom, chat for ten minutes or so before heading back to his post. There was in total five people watching the multiple DRADIS arrays keeping an eye out for any risk to the base but before the war with the Tau'ri no one expected anything. Nysa was a dead post, aside from sending out some ships to react to shipping accident. The only things that normally came into range were ships arriving or departing from one of the three mining operations on the rock.

Since the Tau'ri where now at war with their cousins and Nysa was the nearest colonial outpost to the Tau'ri world that meant they were on the front line. The base commander was now coming down hard on them trying to get things in order before reinforcements arrived from the colonies. The first of those reinforcements the Battlestar Erebus was floating over the base. Word going around the base was that the battlestar was unloading warheads and strange missiles the capabilities of reaching Kobol.

He was about to turn back to the DRADIS screen when the sound of air rushing through the vents caused him to look up. Those vents only ran with air when the airlock was being used but no one was scheduled to go outside that he knew of. He got up from his seat and poked his head out into the hallway only to see a dark figure pointing a gun at him, the flash of the muzzle was the last thing he saw.

"Target down," confirmed the ranger as he and the other members of the strike team moved down the hallway. Their shoes had extra padding in them to help muffle the sound of their footsteps and the same program which had opened the door had disabled the cameras. On the inside of their helmets was a heads up display, which was linked to the life sign detector built into the power armor. This anti-aircraft outpost was one of ten, which surrounded the base and was set up like a missile silo. There was a large center column, which held multiple small anti-air and anti-ship missiles that could be fired out of the top. Most of the base was underground and that is where they went.

None of the soldiers was expecting an attack from the ground, so they had never trained for it and because of that they were caught off guard. One of the reasons they were surprised was because they had built the base so that the hallways would be shorter than the height of a war era Cylon. It meant that the soldiers risked hitting their heads as they walked but it would made Cylons easier to detect and stop. The Tau'ri while on average slightly taller than the Colonials they were nothing compared to the Cylon height at 6 and half feet tall. The Tau'ri moved down the hallways their silenced weapons, life sign detectors and training allowing them to clear the colonials with ease. They moved through the base until they reached the bottom level, down here was the tunnel, which connected the outpost to the base as a whole. There they stopped and waited.

"Team five we are in position." reported the team leader over the radio, the other teams where taking care of the other defense platforms until all of the defense station had been taken and now they only had to wait for the final go.

**The rangers had gotten into position, they were now less than a hundred yards away from the door leading into the Colonial base. **They were hiding among a group of rocks which provided them cover while giving them a view into the base. They were unloading something from the Raptors, while others were putting whatever they were unloading together.

"I don't see that many guards," reported the point man of the strike team as he looked through his scope into the hanger. The colonial crews were wearing slightly bulker spacesuits then he was currently wearing. There suits looked like a pilots flight suit only with a full helmet and a very large pack on the back. The pack had five metal tubes built into the pack that had to be air tanks because of it how it connected to the back of the helmet by two tubes. Judging by how some of the people moved most of the weight of the suit was on the back. His own suit was heavy on the back but not much, it was countered by the packs of extra ammo his had attached to the front. Overall, the combat space suit which was the same as the new bio hazard and radiation suit felt very comfortable.

The Colonials spacesuits where very colorfully some dressed in solid red, green, yellow and red. It took him a moment but it became clear that just like the different colored uniforms of sailors working the flight deck of an aircraft carrier the different color uniformed marked what job they did. The only other colors were the colonial marines in dressed in a very light almost white grey. It did not make sense to him that the Colonial's would wear such light colors in such a dark area. The dark grey with black background of space meant his own black suit blended in well.

"Setting up missile," stated the commanders voice as behind him a team of two of his fellow rangers where setting up a shoulder fired anti-air missile.

The runway was being used so both doors where open to what little atmosphere Nysa had, because of this the men and women had to wear their space suits. The color of the suits told their jobs, people dressed in green took care of unloading the items being brought down from the Erebus, those in red where taking the items that were being unloaded and putting them together in one of the bays which sat on either side of the runway. The workers in yellow where refueling the raptors as needed and making sure that there was no accidents on the runway. The final group those in the grey and white uniforms of the colonial marines walked around or stood out of the way. No one expected anything as a Raptor made it is finally approached toward the runway.

Suddenly the raptor exploded in a fireball sending shards of hot metal into the bay, each one of those pieces where deadly since a cut on their suits was life threating unless a sealing patch. Men and women moved to cover thinking at either a terrible accident happened or that a missile attacked launched from a Tau'ri bomber had happened. Then people began dropping from sniper fire and the first figure wearing a space suit that was not Colonial. It didn't have the pack on its back which recycled the air allow them to stay out in the void for up to three hours. The suits where slimmer and their movement was too fast.

"Tau'ri!" yelled a marine over the wireless as he fired his rifle at the Tau'ri who took cover behind a large crate, he emptied his 15 round magazine and reloaded but when he came back up multiple rounds took him in the chest. Instantly the void of space rushed into his suit and as his blood left his body so did his life. The last thing he ever saw was multiple Tau'ri soldiers moving though the hanger entrees and entering the base. The Tau'ri fire control was great as they cleared away the Colonials with ease, since the ground crews was not armed some threw up their hands only to get forced to the ground by the Tau'ri.

**Alarms were going off on the Erebus as the Commander walked into his CIC.**

"What the frak is going on?" inquired the Commander as his second officer a Colonel looked at him.

"One of our raptors just exploded while making a landing approach." explained the Colonel "Could be just an accident."

"An accident, no the Tau'ri are here." stated the Commander as he looked up at the Dradus screen. It was blank of any unknown traffic but the Tau'ri had cloaked ship.

"Sir!" yelled the wireless officer as everyone looked at her. "Reports of gunfire from within the Nysa base, the Tau'ri have soldiers on the ground."

"Well we can blow them away with our guns." advised the Colonel

"Sir, they are reporting gunfire within the base." reported the wireless officer as the officers blinked, they couldn't believe that the Tau'ri had somehow gotten into the base.

"Contacts!" yelled the Dradis operator "We have multiple contacts in grid A7."

They looked up and there was now 10 ships on the Dradis screen, it took a few moments for the size of the ships to be determined by the Dradis system. Four of the ships where small, in fact the smallest warships that they had seen, five where the same size as the most common Tau'ri ships but the last ship was just slightly larger than his battlestar.

"Get Nysa, tell them to get their anti-air systems ready we can't take on all those ships by ourselves." Stated the Commander, he had two Berzerk type cruisers and four small Hoplite class patrol ships. In numbers of ships they were almost even, 9 to 10 but Tau'ri ships had shields and technology that could tear ships apart. "Launch all Vipers."

"Sir, they are launching fighters!" yelled the Dradis operator.

**Onboard the USS Yorktown, Eagle fighters where being launched from both bays as fast as possible. **They could launch four Eagles at a time and once they had cleared, the next group could be put on the line for takeoff within seconds. It was not as fast as the Colonial style of launching their Vipers by tubs but Eagles could not fit in those small tubes.

The Yorktown stayed back with a protective screen of two Galahad class destroyers, with their anti-air system and rapid-fire rail guns they could put out a thicker wall of fire then their larger sister ships. The five Daedalus class cruisers and the remaining two Galahad class ships would enjoy the pleasure of destroying the nine Colonial warships, which was lined up against them. As they moved forward the Daedalus class ships launched their own Eagles who joined with the Eagle fighters from the Yorktown to move to take on the swarm of incoming Vipers. The bulk of the Eagles moved forward but other flights stayed back to keep a proactive line around the Yorktown and the other ships, since colonial ships could appear almost anywhere thanks to the FTL they had to be prepared to answer a sudden attack.

In that front group of Eagles was Luientant Adler call sign Razgriz as he looked at the heads up display which showed the radar display. There was a lot of Vipers, 160 of them filled the sky over the base as they powered their way toward 60 Eagle fighters.

"Damn that is a lot of targets." said his wingman Luientant Kei Nagase as she flew beside him in her own Eagle fighter. They reached their max range for their missiles as each of the 60 eagles selected their long-range slammer missiles and pulled the trigger. The missiles flew off the rail before heading toward their target some of them arched either upward or downward while others went straight forward so that they could hit the Vipers at different angles.

The Viper pilots could not believe what they were seeing, they had been told that the Tau'ri missiles outranged theirs but the range that the Tau'ri fired was almost double their own. They tried to follow the missiles but the Tau'ri had painted their missiles black and against the blackness of space they were impossible to see. They had to resort to their Dradis screens but Dradis worked by sending a wave of energy out and waiting for it to come back after it bounced off something. The Tau'ri missiles moved so fast that they covered a large distance between each wave. Doctrine called for evasive action to happen at a certain range so that formation could be held and once they dodged the missiles, they could reform the formation quickly to attack.

"Execute!" yelled the flight leader of the vipers as Vipers moved to dodge the missiles. They all executed standard evasion moves for long-range missiles however they failed to understand their enemies.

Through the entire history of Colonial air and space warfare, long-range missiles never had the fuel to do follow their targets through turns. If a pilot dodged it once the missile would fly on past and would not be a danger to them only short-range missiles had the fuel to track their targets during turns. Colonial missiles where like this, Cylon missiles where liked this Tau'ri missiles where not like that.

Tau'ri long range missiles could turned to follow their targets and the colonials found this out too late, 56 of the 60 missile hit their targets. The four missiles which missed didn't actually miss but instead hit the same vipers as other missiles.

"Reform!" yelled the flight led over the wireless as he looked down at his screen, he had just lost 56 birds but now he was in range of his own missiles. He selected his target and waited for a confirmation of a lock on by the tracking Dradis. He looked down surprised, the Dradis wasn't locking on like it should have.

What they didn't know was that like all Tau'ri space craft the Eagle's not only had stealth paint on them more advanced then the stealth coating paint used on stealth aircraft like the American F-117 Nighthawk, F-22 Raptor and others. The paint along with jammer pods was preventing the Colonial missiles from locking on like they should. The Tau'ri did not have that problem as they fired a second wave of missiles, like the first group they flew into the Colonial Vipers who tried to dodge. They had better luck this time only 48 of the 60 missiles hit their targets. The others either missed or in the case of three of them the Viper fired their cannons and shot down the missiles that would have killed them. Either way before they had even made contact with the flight of 60 eagles the colonials had lost 104 of their 160 Vipers. The Eagles now outnumbered the Vipers by four as the Colonial missiles finally got locks with their own missiles.

The Colonial missiles fired at the Tau'ri, this finally caused the Tau'ri to break their formation but the Eagle fighters where all veterans against the Wraith and had come graduated to Eagles from old school jets. They knew what their birds to could do from fighting the Wraith and how to dodge missiles from their time in jets. Only two of the Colonial 56 missiles hit an Eagle, one of them only damaged the fighter forcing it to turn away part of its wing gone while the other was destroyed killing the pilot.

Seeing one of their comrades die only angered the Eagles as they closed in to engaged the Vipers with short range missiles and rail gun fire. It was slaughter as the Eagles tore into the Vipers; the short-range missiles of the Eagles moved faster and had better turning then the Colonials. The Eagles carried 8 missiles which was double what the Colonial carried and while the twin rail guns that the Eagles had matched well against the three cannons the Colonial Vipers had. The Eagles had better armor and could take more hit from the Colonial Cannons then the Vipers could. The main edge the Vipers had was they could make zero radius 360 degree turns while the Eagle's could not. It was not enough to make a difference.

The Colonials did claim a few Eagles in the dogfight but it was not enough as the Vipers turned and ran for their lives only to be chased by a swarm of missiles fired by the Eagles.

**Down in the Command center of Nysa the base commander was trying to get ahold of the marines, which where manning the anti-aircraft missile and gun stations but was getting nothing. **

"Where the frak are they?" yelled the Commander as the sound of distance gunfire filled the air. Everyone in the CIC which was deep underground knew that they where too deep to hear fire from the hanger which the Tau'ri where in the process of claiming. There answer came when a phone call from one of the guard outposts only three levels above them said they were taking fire from Tau'ri forces coming in from one of the outposts.

"Sir, they must have taken out our anti-air systems and are attempting to take the base." reported an officer.

"Seal all doors and set up defense lines. We have battlestars full of marines that can be brought down to reclaim the base." Ordered the commander "Get everyone to the armory and arm them I don't care if they have training or not put a weapon in their hands."

**Onboard the Battlestar Eurbus the Commander watched as the Viper core had been slaughtered like lambs by the Tau'ri fighters and where running back to the ship. **Behind the Tau'ri fighters where the warships which was moving as fast as Vipers, the speed was yet another unbelievable thing that the Tau'ri where capable of.

"Sir, Nysa base has reports Tau'ri soliders in the base and that all their anti-air defense stations had been taken." stated the wireless operator "They request aid to retake the base."

"We can't send them any." stated the commander as he looked at the DRADIS screen, he knew he was suppose to stand and fight, that he was supposed to hold Nysa but he knew one of those Tau'ri ships could destroy this task group. "Order all forces back to the ship, spin up FTL we need to get reinforcements."

"Sir what about the forces in Nysa?" inquired the wireless operator

"They are as good as dead, we need to save the men and women that we can." Countered the Colonel who was saying what the Commander couldn't say outload "We will repay the Tau'ri for what they did but not here."

**Back onboard the Yorktown Owls began to leave the ship carrying squads of paratroopers from the Chinese 11****th**** and the American 101****st**** airborne divisions. **They had a group of Eagle's escorting them in as they made their run toward the base. As they made their landing, they took some small arm fire from a small group of colonials who were holding up in an isolated part of the hanger. They rushed out of the back ramp of the owls and under covering fire made their ways toward cover. The paratroopers made their way to the four large doors which connected the runway to the base as a whole. These doors/airlocks had been sealed even before the arrival of the Tau'ri because the runway was open to space.

On the other side of those doors the Colonials soldiers where no longer surprised by the attack. They where taking up defense positions and building barricades ready to fight the Tau'ri. They knew what way the Tau'ri had to come from and had all their weapons pointed that way.

Onboard the Yorktown the American commanders could not have been more pleased with how the operation was going. They had torn apart the colonial fighter force and they were landing Owls with ease. The smaller ships where approaching the colonial fleet in orbit, they would blow them apart and move on to beam down strike team to take the command center of the base. With that done they would inform the colonials they had control of the base, from there they would do one of two things either take all the colonial prisoners or they would have to vent the base killing them. That was up to the Colonial forces.

"Sir I am getting faint radiation spikes from the colonial ships." reported an officer as the General in charge of the operation turned to look at her.

"Nuke?" inquired the General but before the officer could answer, the first colonial ship disappeared in a flash of light. Moments later the other ships disappeared until the sky was clear of colonial ships. The Daedalus class ships changed course to head toward Nysa while the Galahad class destroyers moved toward the nearest mining centers. They had orders to take over these centers but since they were civilians they weren't going to stop anyone from leaving, in part they hoped that the people would leave. They did not want to deal with colonial civilians and the people were doing as they wished, multiple cargo ships where pulling out and judging from the life sign sensors they were stuff with people.

**The CIC in Nysa still had a single DRADIS system working, they saw their only support turn and run and now they had Tau'ri ships overhead. **Their plan was simple to hold out as long as possible until reinforcements arrived either that or take as many Tau'ri with them. Just then, a flash of light filled the CIC, when it clearly a pulled grenade was falling in midair within arm reach of the base commander. It went off before they had time to think about how that was possible.

The flash of the flashbang masked the arrival of the strike team, which had beamed in from one of the Daedalus warships. The colonials where still trying to recover as the Tau'ri descended on them with stun weapons, it was over in moments as the Tau'ri gained control of the CIC.

The marines and other personal of the base where busy trying to set up defenses against the Tau'ri when suddenly their wireless came alive. The message came over the internal command channel.

"Attention Colonial forces, we have taken the Command center of this base." Said a voice none of them knew "Surrender now or we will vent the atmosphere from the base."

"It's a trick, they couldn't have taken the CIC." said many around the base, then a voice they did know came over the wireless. It was the voice of their commander.

"Men, women the Tau'ri have taken the CIC and can vent the base." reported their commander's voice "I am ordering you to stand down and surrender."

**In the hanger, the Tau'ri had closed the doors and as they did some of the 101****st**** and the 11****th**** airborne began to look at the items that the Colonials had been unloading. **

"Captain Han!" yelled Corporeal Lefeld of the 101st airborne to the female Chinese Captain Lu Han, she happened to be the nearest officer to him at the time. She turned and walked toward him.

"What is it Corporeal?" inquired the Chinese officer in perfect English.

"Ma'am Take a look at this," yelled Corporeal Lefeld as he opened a crate to show multiple warheads sitting in protective cases. Captain Han tapped her built into wrist computers and scanned the warheads; alarms went off as radiation was detected. "Tell me you have something besides nuclear warheads on you display?"

"I can't." confirmed Captain Han as she moved to another crate and opened it. She did another scan only to come back with VX gas detected instead of radiation from a warhead. "And it gets worse."

**Onboard the Yorktown the officers in command of the operation could not be happier the base was all but theirs and they had only lost 15 Eagle fighters to over a 130 enemy kills, of those 15 eagles 9 of their crew had beam beamed to safety. **The reports where that they had lost two in the taking of the hanger with an additional 7 wounded. The remaining Colonial forces inside the base where surrendering.

"Alright get teams down there to start setting up shields so that we can hold this ground from colonial counter attacks and prepare to move some Eagles." ordered the general "I want to get this base up and running as soon as possible so that we can take the fight to them."

"Sir message coming in from Captain Han of the 11th airborne, they have found something." reported an officer as the General walked over to a computer, which allow him to speak with the Captain down below.

"Captain Han, go ahead." ordered the General

"Sir," started Captain Han "We have found multiple nuclear warheads along with biological and chemical weapons all being prepared for launch against Valhalla."

The officers all shared a look; they all knew that they had sent warnings to the Colonial government that if they used WMDs on Valhalla they would respond in kind. If the Colonial government was preparing to launch an attack with WMDs it meant that they didn't care anymore and the war had just taken a dark and terrible turn.

**Well I hope you liked this chapter and the capture of Nysa by the Tau'ri and the discovery of the Colonial planned attack on Valhalla. Now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75**


	49. Chapter 49

**Chapter 49 A Disregarded Demand**

An emergency meeting was taking place on Earth as General Jack O'Neill sat in the oval office along with the President of the United States and five other world leaders. Of the big eight nations only the German Chancellor and the Russian President was missing, the German Chancellor was busy working with different industries to get on a war footing while the Russian President had a family issue with the birth of his first grandchild in St. Pettersburg. Sitting in their place where two top aids who would inform their leaders of what would be discussed.

"So we took the colonial base at Nysa." reported the American President as General O'Neill nodded his head.

"Yes, sir but when we did we found something." reported Jack as he took a breath. "Sir, the colonials where only hours away from launching FTL capable drones toward Valhalla."

"Are we talking recon drones?" inquired the Chinese Premier

"Yes and no, they appear to be the same drones but modified to carry weapons. We have found that each of the drones carried space for warheads either Nuclear, Biological or this Hade's Fire, which is basically Greek Fire." explained O'Neill as the world leaders shared looks among each other. "Sir we are still trying to figure everything out but they had signed orders from their president to carry out attacks on Valhalla. We have everyone on alert and from we can gather they hadn't launched anything yet, we took the base while they were still getting everything ready."

"I see." said the American President as he leaned back a bit in his chair his green eyes scanning the other leaders in the room. "We did warn the colonials that we would respond in kind to any attack on Vahalla civilians?"

"Where these missiles aimed at populated centers?" inquired the French President, they all knew that only the capital city of Celin and the base containing the Stargate had shields. It would have been too costly and too much of a drain on power to cover every city with a shield.

"Sir, the missiles where very dumb." explained O'Neill "Basically the drones would jump over Valhalla and then the missiles would be fired at the ground. There was no real guidance per say there only setting was to strike either the planet or a space born target. A warhead could hit anywhere on the planet."

"Then what use is that?" inquired the Indiana President

"Sir, we found enough gas to kill half the population of Valhalla. We are talking many different kinds of gas ranging from Mustarded Gas to VX and Anthrax to Small Pox. The Hade's fire is harder to say how much it would cover because we are limited in knowledge on how fast it could spread." explained O'Neill, he personally hated gas warfare and his uncle had told him stories of firebombing Tokyo in WW2. "And you can't use biological or chemical weapons in space."

"No you can't and you can't use fire bombs either." added the President "So at best the Colonials where planning us gas our people and at worse they were going to drop that plus more nuclear weapons on our people."

"The issue is what do we do about it?" stated the Brazilian President "Do we unleash our fury on them because they failed to attack us? Do we drop the most powerful nuclear bomb we have on them for a failed attempt to attack us or do we warn them again."

"Drop it on their capital and be done with it. We warned them once," stated the Chinese Premier before remembering they had already bombed that city. "Or another major city, maybe it will shock them into ending this pointless fight."

"Unlikely, we are talking about religious nutcases who believe that if they die fighting for their Lords they will be reward and we all know how hard it is to deal with just a small group of people who believe like that." Countered the Russian Prime Minster who was standing in for his president, under their system he carried out the same duties as a Vice President. "And from all reports it appears that they have whole planets full of people like this."

"Then use multiple bombs." Countered the Chinese Primer

"Sirs, ma'am." said O'Neill as he got all their attention. "The Mark XVII is capable of ending countless millions possibly billions of lives and we have one ready to deploy on your orders but the question is do we throw all those people into the nuclear fireball. The power this bomb has is on a scale that not even I can fully understand but if we drop this then everyone within five hundred miles of the blast will be vaporized. The a death rate outside of that range is over 85 percent another 250 miles beyond that point dropping about 5 to 10 percent with every 250 or miles. The range of this bomb is 2,500 miles radius from the blast zone with a diameter of 5,000 miles across. If we dropped one here some people in Los Angeles would be dead and the city would look as if a powerful earthquake hit it. Glass would be breaking in Honolulu Hawaii and the flash would be seen in Tokyo and in Baghdad. That is the power we have in our hands and that is something we have to take into account."

"General, we cannot let this go our people will be up in arms once word gets out and if they carry out an attack then our people will die." stated the Brazilian President "No we have to use the Mark XVII. We warned them that we would not hold back if they unleashed their WMDs on us. We must show them what we are capable of."

"Sirs, I understand your points but maybe we can find a middle ground," offered General O'Neill "Our third target is the Colonial military base of Nyx on the world of Aquaria. Intelligence has discovered that this base holds about one third of the colonial nuclear stockpile which is not out on ships and it a major research center for WMDs. If we have to drop a Mark XVII I recommend we drop it here."

"Wouldn't dropping it there be just as deadly to the populous of the Colonials?" inquired the British PM

"No, ma'am." countered Jack "Aquaria is an ice world, I am actually amazed people live there. The temperature at the equator in summer is what we would find in northern Siberia and the only major city is on the opposite side of the planet from the base. So civilian casualties beside those who worked the base will be low but it will still show the Colonials what we can do."

Jack did not know how the blast would affect the environment of the planet and it would plunge it into a nuclear winter, but the people would be able to leave. The only civilians who would die would be those who worked at the base and that was something he could live with.

"I see." said the American President "That would be a nice middle ground."

"Also I recommend that we announce both to our public and to theirs what we have found and give them say 12 hours to either accept an unconditional surrender or we will unleash this weapon." Advised Jack the leaders considered that. "It would also give us time to coordinate different attack options with our teams on the ground already and we can hit them from multiple ways to overwhelm them."

"Alerting them of a strike would also cause the panic in their major cities as people worry about an attack." Added the British PM "It would as if some terrorist group said they had a nuke and would blow up a city the markets would crash and people would panic."

"Alright, General give then the warning but if they don't give up within 12 hours we will drop the bomb." ordered the American President who was the current head of the Tau'ri alliance, the other worlds leaders nodded their heads in agreement.

**Outside of Caprica City President Richard Adar was awoken by a hand on his shoulder, he opened his eyes to see a man dressed in a Colonial Marine Uniform standing over him.**

"Sir, Admiral Nagata is on her way up." reported the Marine "We have a situation."

"What happened?" inquired the President as he sat up in bed and looked at the clock, he had only been asleep for two hours, outside the window it was still pitch black as night held the land outside in it's grips.

"Sir, Nysa has fallen to the Tau'ri." reported the Marine as the President blinked as he tried to remember where Nysa was. It came back to him in a flash; Nysa was the front line base for operations against the Tau'ri. It was also where they had moved their nuclear, biological and Hades fire weapons to. If the Tau'ri had taken the base, then they would know what his government was planning to do.

"Frak," cursed the President, he stood up and as the marine left the room he got dressed into a white shirt and dress pants. He was about to put on his tie when a knock at the door meant that Admiral Nagata was outside.

"Enter." said Adar as Admiral Nagata entered the bedroom of the President Suite. She had a worn out look on her face which told of bad news. "I heard we loss Nysa."

"Yes, but it worse than that." stated Admiral Nagata "Sir, Nysa was where we were stationing our drone attack on Kobol. The Tau'ri now know what we were planning to do. We can expect an attack in the next few hours."

"Agreed, do you have any ideas where they will launch their biological attack and with what?" inquired the President

"None, but we are working to find out." Explained Admiral Nagata

**Back on Valhalla a line of Condor bombers sat on the runway, ground crews were busy loading up the strike aircraft with multiple long range missiles. **Watching from a distance was pilot of Elsa's Revenge, Andrea Lang. The Norwegian pilot had painted on multiple red bombs onto the side of her aircraft right beside the lifelike painting of Elsa from Frozen. Each bomb marked a completed mission and soon they would be going out on another one.

"So what do you think we will do this time?" inquired one of her fellow pilots, an Italian who was busy eating some pizza that sat on top of the hood of the truck they were all standing around.

"The same thing as last time and the time before that, we will go in launch our missiles at long range and get out." added another pilot a Spanish woman "We need to change it up, or the colonials will figure something out."

"We need to figure out a nick name for them," added an American "I heard they calling us Tars instead of Tau'ri."

"Does that really matter?" inquired Andrea as an officer walked out of the main building of the airbase and talked to the head of the ground crew. They all watched as he yelled something at the crew and then before the eyes of the confused pilots the ground crew began taking off the missiles they had just put on.

"What the hell?" inquired Andrea as the officer walked toward them. They all snapped to attention as the officer returned the salute.

"As you may have noticed the ground crew are taking off the missiles." said the officer "The mission you had against the Colonials is cancelled. We are on hot pad alert to carry out a different mission."

"What sort of mission? Sir." inquired Andrea

"You all heard we took Nysa so that our fighters could enter the fight, well they found something." explained the officer as he took a breath. "The Colonials where planning to carry out a massive gas attack on us."

That got all the pilots attention.

"In about an hour it will be released to the public and unless the colonials surrender unconditionally in a few hours we are taking the gloves off." explained the officer "I don't know all the details yet but in about two hours we will get a shipment of modified JDams that carry something called Dragon Fire instead of high explosives."

"Dragon Fire?" inquired another pilot "Is that a new type of Napalm?"

"From my understanding it is basically our new version of what the Colonials call Hades Fire that they were going to drop on us and both of them are descendants of Greek Fire." Explained the officer

"So we are going to firebomb a city?" inquired a Japanese Pilot

"That hasn't been fully decided but it looks like we have a different target in mind." Countered the officer

**It happened in the middle of a news interview about how many people had signed up to fight.** They had just started when the transmission was taken over and the image of well-dressed man standing behind a desk began to be broadcast across the 12 colonies of Kobol. The colonials did not know what the room was but the people of Earth recognized the oval office, the only addition was beside the flags of the United States and the President of the United States stood the flags of the Tau'ri and the office of the President of the Tau'ri.

"Good day, for those who are watching me in the 12 colonies of Kobol I am the President of the United States of America and current head of the Tau'ri alliance." Began the President as he looked straightforward. "A couple of hours ago, forces took over the Colonial base on a small micro planet named Nysa. After we took the base, we discovered that the Colonial government has been stockpiling Nuclear, Biological, Chemical and fire weapons called Hades Fire at the base. The purpose of this build up was to carry out strikes against civilian and military targets on Valhalla. We have warned the colonial government that any use of Weapons of Mass Destruction on the surface of Valhalla will be matched in kind on Colonial Worlds. We have prevented this from happening but the attempt can't go unpunished."

The President took a breath as he prepared himself.

"I speak now to the people and leadership of the 12 colonies of Kobol, you have attempted to carry out attacks using WMDs on innocent people, you had already carried out an unprovoked attack on our world that killed hundreds of thousands of innocents and you have attempted to assassinate a peaceful envoy from a neutral race. This is your final chance to prevent us from unleashing power that you cannot imagine, if you do not accept an unconditional surrender within 12 hours we will show you what real war is like. I pray that you get wisdom, we the Tau'ri do not want to do what will have to be done but if you force our hand we will show you what we are really capable of."

With that the broadcast was cut off leaving the Colonial news groups to go into overdrive as they tried to wrap their minds around what they had just heard.

**It took only moments for the heads of the Colonial government who had just started yet another emergency meeting when the broadcast came across all the wireless channels in the 12 colonies.** Not the entire cabinet was on Caprica so only a few members of the actual cabinet could be assembled in person.

"So the Tau'ri have taken Nysa." stated the Vice President. "This is a set back and we have to take it back as soon as possible. The people will demand that we retake Nysa."

"Most of them likely don't even know where Nysa is." reported an aid "However they will not stand for colonial land being under Tau'ri control."

"Yes, and now they know what we planned," added President Adar "We should expect a gas attack and a firebombing to take place in retaliation for our planning."

"At least they gave us warning so that the people can be ready," added Cain "I will also be taking over the questioning of the Tau'ri prisoner myself. With luck we will be able to find out what type of gas they will likely use and since the Tau'ri do not process Hade's Fire so regular firefighting teams will be able to protect our bases from the Tau'ri firebombing."

"Go as soon as we finish here, get the information as soon as possible we can't let the demand of unconditional surrender go unanswered for long." stated Spiros before turning toward Adar. "If we let this go unanswered for long your enemies will believe we are actually considering giving in to the Tau'ri and the Quorum will never allow that. We need to come out right away and demand that the Tau'ri surrender and that the people will never give up until all the tribes of Kobol are united under the faith."

"Alright, so we know we are going to reject this offer from the Tau'ri but what do we need to reclaim Nysa. We cannot let even the smallest part of our landfall under the Tau'ri control for long." stated Adar

"The good news is that the task group commander who was at Nysa pulled back when he saw that the Tau'ri outnumbered him." Explained Admiral Nagata, Cain grumbled something along the line of coward her breath but said nothing more. "We have three other task groups heading to join with it, we will have enough to either reclaim the base or at worse destroy the base."

"I would rather have it destroyed then have it in Tau'ri hands." Stated Spiros

"How do you plan to deal with the Tau'ri shields?" inquired Adar "I will not send those ships in to be massacred, this report about our fighters is alarming."

"First we will outnumber the Tau'ri force, which only attacked with 10 ships we will have almost 46 ships and 10 of those will be Battlestars." Explained Nagata "Also with the threat of Tau'ri shields we have sent out NA-89 shells to our Battlestars."

"NA-89?" inquired Adar

"So you restarted production of those," laughed Cain "It is about time, we should never had stopped."

"NA-89?" repeated Adar as even Spiros looked on confused.

"Sir, NA-89 artillery rounds where developed at the end of the Cylon war and we never sent them out to ships in large numbers due to the threat of someone getting their hands on one of them," explained Nagata. "Basically they are our standard large caliber shells for guns on our Battlestars but the normal high explosive charged is replaced with 1.25 kiloton nuclear warhead. With the rate of fire on our battlestars main weapons we may be finally be overcome the advantages of the Tau'ri shields."

"Why isn't this standard?" inquired Spiros "That would be a useful weapon against both the Tau'ri and the Cylons."

"Would you want a 1.25 kiloton nuclear warhead to fall into the hands of a terrorist group?" explained Cain. "You can't keep those shells under as tight as guard as most nuclear weapons because of the number of shells needed for a battlestar to use in a battle. But if it works we will have an edge over the Tau'ri that they can't overcome from everything we know our ships have more guns that fire at a faster rate."

"I want production spread out across the colonies so that the Tau'ri can't destroy our main protection center in a single strike." Ordered the President

"Yes, sir." said Cain. "I also have a group looking into a small deposit of what we believe is the key element in the Tau'ri equipment and power systems, if we figure out how they work it we can begin to match them on multiple fronts."

"Good." confirmed Spiros

"Now if you excuses me, I have a prisoner to integrate." said Cain as she stood up.

"And I have a refusal speech to write." added Adar

"You should give it within an hour at the most two, we can't let people think that we are actually considering surrender." Added Spiros "We can also use the speech to raise people's hopes and get people ready for the Tau'ri counterattack."

Adar nodded his head in agreement.

**One of only two active duty Taita fighter bombers rested in it's own out cove of the HMS Ark Royal, it stood out compared to the other spacecraft not only because it's different design but the fact that an American Flag was painted on the tail fine along with the Tau'ri one.** The Eagle and Owls had the union jack painted on their birds. Walking around her bird doing another check of the fresh out of prototype bird in her flight suit was Lieutenant Rose Ryan of the United States Navy. She was singing quietly to herself as she listened to her music player.

"I burn, can't hold me now you got nothing that can stop me." She sung as the Captain of the Arc Royal moved toward her.

She never heard the footsteps coming toward her due to the headphones in her ears, it was not until she felt a tap on her shoulder did she turn to see Captain Taylor. She snapped to attention before remembering she had her headphones in, she yanked them out before going back to attention, however she had forgotten to hit the stop button so her music kept playing.

"Sorry, sir." apologized Rose as she turned off the music.

"Well I have to say that isn't the strangest thing I have seen a person do while in uniform." explained Captain Taylor "Back when I was still commanding an ocean going vessel, I saw one of my sailors walk right off the side of the ship while playing Pokémon go. Fell right into the water, it was funny until we had to send someone in to get him."

"I believe it, sir." confirmed Rose "I heard they are bring that to Valhalla."

"Well that is beside the point, now I came to inquire is your bird ready?" inquired Captain Taylor

"Yes, sir." confirmed Rose

'Good, because we stopped a Colonial WMD attack on Valhalla, so we just got word we are on hot pad alert." explained the Captain as Rose gulped. "In a couple of minutes the ground crew will arm your bird and you have to be ready to take off at any moment."

"Do we know the target?" inquired Rose as she looked to where the royal marines had the Mark XVIII nuclear bomb guarded.

"It's the one you wanted." confirmed Captain Taylor "Along with the bomb you are going to carry two Mark IXs and four air to air missiles."

"Sir, why the Mark IXs?" inquired Rose

"In case the Mark XVIII doesn't go off you will drop the Mark IXs on it to make sure the Colonials do not recover it," explained the Captain Taylor as Lieutenant Rose nodded her head.

"Alright, any idea when?" inquired Lieutenant Rose

"From my understanding the Colonials have 12 hours to either surrender or we carry out our attack," explained Captain Taylor

**Back on Caprica, Drugov was getting board, his questioners from the Colonial Intelligence Service was attempting to get information out of him by being nice.** The best counter move to that was for Drugov had remained silent, that way they could not get him talking. It was very boring for him, all he had to do was look at the blurry photos that the colonials had taken of Valhalla. He was right in the middle of trying to figure out what sort of vehicle was in one of photos when the door burst open and a woman marched in.

The sudden appearance of the woman even surprised Drugov, the was too surprise to even scream as she plunged a large switchblade knife into the top of his right hand. He winced in pain as his blood started to pour out of the wound. Even the Colonials were surprised as they looked at the woman.

"Secretary Cain?" inquired his integrator surprised by the action of the woman.

"Yes." confirmed the woman as she turned her rage toward the Russian "Now Tau'ri, you will start talking or I will do this again."

With that, she pivoted her knife blade edge down so that it cut into the Russian's flesh, the knife cut into bone and flesh. With force, Helen's Cain knife cut through his bone until she all but cut off the Russian's thumb.

"What is the use of a solider without a thumb?" inquired Cain as Drugov looked into Cain's eyes with some respect. He laughed as he looked at the bloody cut, his laughter caught the Colonials by surprise.

"Listen lady, about two years ago I had the hand you are cutting into blown off by an accident with a grenade." Laughed Drugov "Our technology has advanced to the point that they were able to clone a new hand in a lab and replace it. We can grow entire limbs and organs, your little threat is pointless all it will do is give me better stories to tell when I get back home. It will get a few people to buy me vodka at the bar which is always good."

"You lie." growled Cain as she twisted the knife causing Drugov to wince in pain his blood pouring from the wound.

"You can cut off my arm or a leg and I will get a new one within 10 days of getting back to Valhalla." stated Drugov biting down a scream. "It will take longer for me to regain muscle memory but I did it once I can do it again. As for the pain, I am Russian and I am Spetsnaz pain is something we are used to."

"Can they replace your lungs while your here, because whatever gas your people drop on us I will make sure you get a large sample of it yourself." stated Cain as Drugov looked at Cain with surprise in his eyes.

"Gas?" inquired Drugov, that got the Russian's attention

"We where about to carry out a Gas attack on Kobol when your people stopped it. Now they have made demands that we surrender or they will repay us in kind." stated Cain "Now tell me what sort of Gas do you Tau'ri use, if it helps you justify talking you will not only save your own life but civilians."

"What where the words of my government?" inquired Drugov

"That they would respond in kind to any WMD, Nuclear, Biological or Chemical attack on Vahalla/Kobol citizens with their own WMD." stated the Cain

"Idiots, you are fucking idiots," cursed Drugov in his native Russian before switching to what the colonials would understand. "How big was the attack you were going to carry out? That will effect the response."

"We were going to carry out nuclear strike on ships in orbit, biological and chemical attacks on the surface with some Hade's Fire bombs on top of it all." Stated Cain "Now tell me what sort of Gas should we expect to fall on one of our cities."

"My God, you are fucking idiots," stated Drugov as the officer blinked. One of the lower officers moved to slap the Russian for saying God instead of Lords of Kobol or Gods but was stopped by Cain. "Did you actually read the message as if you drop some gas on our world we drop gas on you?"

"Yes." Admitted Cain as Drugov rolled his eyes before shaking his head. His training told him to shut his mouth but he also didn't feel like dying in a nuclear fireball.

"Then you are idiots, Chemical, Biological and Nuclear weapons are all WMDs." Stated Drugov as the officer blinked.

"What do you mean?" inquired Cain

"That to us, Chemical Weapons are the same as Nuclear Weapons are on the same scale. If you use biological weapons we can respond with nuclear weapons." Stated Drugov as the Colonials blinked at the idea. Drogov was shaking his head at the Colonial stupidity.

"You would drop nuclear weapons on us in response to a gas?" inquired Cain stunned at the very idea. "That doesn't make sense, Nuclear weapons aren't on the same level of destruction as Chemical. It takes decade's maybe centuries to clean up an area after a nuclear strike but only weeks or even hours to clean up a biological strike. "

"To us they are the same, they are interchangeable a WMD is a WMD." stated Drogov as if it he was stating a law of nature. "You idiots just brought this war to a new level; we will likely throw a couple of your cities into the nuclear fire in response for what you tried. The people of Earth where already crying out to do it right after you hit us first and now you forced our leaders hands, they will strike."

Cain pulled her knife and rushed out of the room. She ran up the stairs taking three steps at a time until she reached the command center of the black site base. She grabbed one of the communication links and dialed the emergency contact for the President's office.

"This is Helen Cain, I need to speak with the President now!" yelled Cain to the operator.

"Ma'am I am sorry but he is in the middle of a speech," stated the operator as Cain looked up at one of the screens. There she saw the President standing before a podium with the vice president and senior members of the Quorum.

"We will never give in to Tau'ri demands, we will fight on until we will reclaim Kobol and bring unity back to the sons and daughters of Kobol. I admit as President I ordered a biological and Hade's fire strike on Kobol which can easily be cleaned up once we reclaim Kobol, along with nuclear strikes on the Earth ships in orbit," stated the President with the vice president and senior member from each of the 12 worlds stood behind him. "We will fight on no matter what; we have strength in our faith, our history and ourselves. We will never comply to our cousin's demands we are 12 tribes they are but one. We will fight on until final victory."

Everyone was clapping as Cain's blood turned cold as she imagined what the Tau'ri would do. The President stepped aside as the most senior member of the Quorum moved to the podium to add the Quorum's support to the President's words.

"The Quorum back's the President statement, the only way this civil war will end is if our cousin's return to the fold and accept the Lords of Kobol and the supremacy of Quorum of the 13 tribes of Kobol." explained the Senior Quorum member as the civilians in the crowd clapped once again. They all knew the importance of saying 13th tribes of Kobol, that all but confirmed that the government was now considering this a civil war. "At any moment that the 13th tribe wishes to return to the fold then we will welcome them back, until then we will carry on in faith and strength. We know that the words of threat from the people of Earth are just words and that they can't hurt us. If any of our cousins on Earth or Kobol are watching know that we will never give in and we will never surrender."

**The President of the United States leaned against the desk of the oval office around him was the other major powers plus eight other world leaders from the other major players in the Tau'ri alliance. **

"Mr. President, this is your call but it has become clear that the Colonials do not want peace," stated the head of the Tau'ri general assembly, the South African President. "They will never quit unless we show them that they can't win."

"The people are crying out for revenge, the media is running with the effects of the gas and they want the colonials to know what will happen if they try this again." explained the Russian President "If we don't strike back they will only try it again and next time we may not be so lucky."

"This operation will be the most deadly single operation since WW2." explained the French President "Thousands of people both military and civilians will die, this is something that needs to be considered. The moral standing of us with the other powers in the galaxy may be effective by using this."

"Maybe if we used the bomb on a highly populated area but we are hitting a military target." explained the British PM as she leaned back in her chair. "Besides when the Colonials pulled a knife on the peace envoy from the Nox and claimed that they by rights they owned the rest of the galaxy they lost all chances of getting help from even those powers who aren't friendly to us."

"Why not drop the bomb on one of the gas giants or on their space based shipyards?" inquired the German Chancellor

"The Mark XVIII doesn't work outside of a planet's atmosphere and the pressure on a gas giant would crush the bomb before it could go off." explained the American President with a shake of the head. "I have even considered deploying a black hole bomb on one of their gas giant but our experts say if we did that, the mass of the planet would be large enough to keep the artificially made black hole going and it could take the entire colonial star system with it."

"Mr. President it is time." Said an aid as the American President looked around the room, one by one each of the world leaders nodded their heads in agreement. Some like the Russian President nodded at once while some like the French President nodded his agreement sadly.

"This is the worse call I have ever had to make." added the American President as he reached down and picked up a phone. The phone linked him to the SGC on the moon and through the Stargate to Vahalla. "Operation approved."

**On Valhalla the Tau'ri military went into overdrive as word of the approval of the operation went out.** Pilots where running toward their bombers as the ground crews removed the wooden blocks that made sure that the bombers did not move. The pilots rushed onboard as other ground crew made sure that all the weapons where in place and that the bird was ready to flight. They gave thumb ups to the pilots as they began to roll toward the runway and toward the battlefield. Under their wings and in their bomb bays where a mix of different weapons, some had long range missiles, others had regular bombs but six flights for a total of 144 aircraft was loaded with dragon 12 fire bombs each.

It wasn't just Condors who were taking to the air, multiple squadrons of Eagle fighters took flight, they would be providing escort for the bombers and would fly the mission stopping at the recently captured base of Nysa on their way back to refuel. In front of them all the Owls took off, they would provide early warning and recovery of any damaged. The might of the Tau'ri was taking flight and they would show the Colonial's what their version of war was really like.

**Well I hope you liked this chapter, the Colonials learned too late what the Tau'ri means by responding in kind to Colonial WMDs. I would like to clear something up, last chapter I accidentally wrote that the Enterprise was waiting near Nysa, it was actually the Yorktown. The Enterprise hasn't been built yet, that is my mistake and I have gone back and fixed that error. Now I would like to thank everyone who reviewed and I ask that you keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	50. Chapter 50

**Chapter 50 Has Man Gone Insane? **

The elevator carried the President of the 12 colonies of Kobol down into the underground military black site came to a stop at the right floor. His mind was racing and he was still coming to grips with what he had been told over the phone. Luckily he did not have far to travel to the black site where the Tau'ri prisoner was being kept. The elevator doors opened to show Secretary Cain standing there, for the first time in the time that he had dealt with her she looked afraid.

"They consider nuclear weapons and biological weapons one and the same?" inquired Adar again.

"Yes, sir if our prisoner is to be believed." stated Cain

"That doesn't make any fraken sense," snapped Adar as he moved down the hall.

"No it doesn't, I have already ordered our forces into the highest alert possible and sent flash messages to high ranking Admirals and Generals to expect a possible nuclear strike or strikes on cities across the colonies." reported Cain

"Whatever you ordered double it now." snapped Adar "I just can't believe that our cousins believe nuclear and biological weapons are the same thing. How much time do we have until they hit us?"

"Based off our fast it took one of those large transport ships to reach us to drop off that holographic equipment for their little show in Atlas stadium, we have about three hours." reported Cain as she remembered checking out the news broadcasts while she waited for the president. "The people seem very calm which is useful and the media keeps covering how to protect against biological weapons. I would say to warn them about possible nuclear strikes but that would cause a massive panic. Biological weapons are one thing nuclear is another."

"Yes." confirmed the President "I need to talk to this prisoner, maybe we can get a better understanding of what the frak is going on in the mind of our cousins."

"Right this way sir," said Cain as she lead Adar into a side room where a man dressed in black was tied to a chair. A medic was wrapping his hand but the white cloth of the wrappings where already bleeding through it. Adar gave Cain a dirty look but Cain simply shrugged.

"Mr. President." said one of the three-armed guards as they all snapped to attention.

"Ah, here comes the fool who thought he could stand against the Tau'ri." laughed Drugov

"Shut the frak up, this is the President of the 13 colonies of Kobol and that makes him your president as well." Ordered one of the armed guards, he was about to hit the Russian only to have the President stop him with a raised hand.

"So you say that we are going to get hit with a nuclear strike by the people of Earth." said Adar

"Likely more than one, depending on how many times you were planning to strike Valhalla." Said Drugov "How many times where you going to do it?"

"Cain?" inquired the President

"We had 24 drones capable of carrying warheads I think it was split 14 with nuclear weapons for space targets with 10 for ground targets. Six of those would be biological or chemical and the last four would have hades fire." explained Cain

"Then expect 24 cites to be thrown into the nuclear fire." Stated Drugov coolly as the Colonials stood there wide eyed at the idea. "That would be two on every world, sounds about right to me."

"You can't consider Nuclear weapons and biological weapons the same thing? It doesn't make any sense." countered Adar praying to Zeus and all the lords of Kobol that it was some sick joke. "By the Lords of Kobol why would you believe they are equal?"

"It makes sense if you know our history; we have had more people killed with biological and chemical weapons then with nuclear weapons. The battlefields of World War 1 and the Nazi death camps of World War 2 come to mind most of all." Explained Drugov "The only issue that might come up is question about if or if it isn't a war crime but you never signed that treaty and even if you had you broke it when you nuked Valhalla and attempted a second and larger attack."

"You would kill millions of people!" stated Adar "You can't be that blood thirsty!"

"Yes we can be, we have done it in the past," stated Drugov with an evil grin. "So pray to your Lords of Kobol, Jesus, Buda or even to the Flying Spaghetti Monster it will not make any difference."

**A few hundred miles away a unit of Colonial Army armored soldiers gathered on the runway of their base**. The 200 men were loading them into the massive belly of an Atlas transport, the ship which looked like a tube with wings which ran all the way from the nose to the engine was an ugly looking ship but it could carry up to six of the heavy Pallas tanks. While it did not have to carry six tanks it was loaded to the max with two Pallas tanks, along with two Hoplon armored vehicles and two Phrygian recon vehicles. Once they were loaded up and the large side door closed the powerful engines came to life as the Atlas took flight and left the ground behind.

The Captain in charge of the army unit climb up the stairs and up to the flight deck, he walked into the small cramp room to find that the crew was all men. That was kind of strange since a larger percentage of the transport core was women, but everything seemed fine.

"Sir," Said the Captain as he snapped to attention, in truth he outranked the officer in charge of the ship but the officer was in charge of the ship so it was only right to give command to him.

"Welcome onboard, I hope you and your men are ready for a long journey," said the officer as the Captain looked at him confused. He handed over a clipboard with an order from command. "Due to the threat of Tau'ri spacecraft we have to move in a convoy, we will jump to their location and then once everyone arrives we will head to Tauron."

"How long?" inquired the Captain

"If everything goes on schedule we should arrive at Tauron in three to four hours," explained the officer as the Captain groaned. "I have no control over that blame command or the fraking Tau'ri for starting this war."

"Well I will tell the men to find a place to rest or play cards." said the Captain as he moved out of the flight deck leaving the crew to smile among themselves, the FTL jump was carried out with ease. Instead of the plan, which was to appear in the middle of a convoy with warships as escort, the Atlas transport appeared in a flash of light with a Daedalus class Battlecruiser and a Hadrian class transport waiting for it far away from any of the Colonial shipping lanes.

"Well boys, let's keep playing along until we reach Valhalla." ordered the American Delta force commander who was masquerading as Colonials. The Hadrian class transport ship moved under the Atlas transports and extended its shields to hold the Atlas transport within its own shield. Once that was done ground crew moved out and used chains, straps and tractor beam to hold it in place. With that done, the Hadrian class ship turned and headed into hyperspace with the Atlas transport on its back. It would take three hours to reach Valhalla, the Colonial soldiers had no idea where they would end up.

**Doctor Baltar and the blonde bombshell of a woman he was currently sleeping with, Doctor Jenny Oldstone looked out the small window of a civilian raptor as it flew through the Scorpia shipyards. **From their small vantage point, they could see that the shipyard was hard at work, multiple older battlestars where being refitted for battle against the Tau'ri. Even newer post war battlestars, where being worked on as massive plates of armor where being attached to the side of each ship in an attempt to protect them from beam strikes.

The Raptor made a turn as the massive mostly finished body of the largest Battlestar ever created by the people of the 12 colonies of Kobol, the Battlestar Hercules. The battlestar was truly massive in scale and had more guns and thicker armor then any ship in history.

"The Tau'ri will soon run in fear when they see that ship and its sister ships." reported the pilot with a laugh not realizing that Baltar was seeing that massive ship blowing to pieces in his mind eyed. He did not get an answer and shut up before making a turn and headed toward what on the outside looked like an old civilian work station. The station was built on and into a captured asteroid, which was stuck in orbit of the planet. The Raptor landed in an old badly lit bay, everyone waited as the massive doors closed and air was pumped into the hanger.

"All green." reported the copilot as Doctor Baltar and Doctor Oldstone stepped out into what appeared to be an old semi abounded bay. The chains which hung from the ceiling where rusty and the remains of an outdated construction ship rested in the far corner.

"This is a military research center?" inquired Doctor Oldstone

"Under the surface yes." said an Admiral in the blue of the Colonial Navy walked out of the remains of the outdates ship. "Please follow me."

The two doctors followed him back into the outdated ship only to discover it was a false front and waiting inside was an elevator. They stepped into the elevator and began to drop down into the heart of the research center.

"Why are we here?" inquired Oldstone as the Admiral looked at her for a moment before going on.

"You are here to work on FTL drives," explained the Admiral as he took a breath "We are working on something that will hopefully be a key to defeating the Tau'ri."

"Excuse me Admiral but I have seen what the Tau'ri are capable of and I am not sure we could have anything that could stand against them." stated Baltar as the Admiral glared at him for his defeatist talk.

"Would you change your mind if we believe we are within months of having an FTL capable ship capable of reaching Kobol within 10 minutes." stated the Admiral as Baltar and Oldstone looked at him stunned.

"How do you deal with the buildup of radiation that happens when a ship carries out FTL jumps?" inquired the humanoid Cylon masking as Doctor Jenny Oldstone. "The main problem with FTL drives is that whenever a ship jumps the haul of the ship gets hit with a strong hit of radiation, without cool down time the radiation from another jump will kill the people inside the ship. Only military ships with heavy armor designed to take nuclear strikes can handle multiple jumps in a quick order."

"All this is true." Admitted the Admiral "However once we remove the need to keep people alive the problems become more manageable."

"What? Are you making Cylons down here?" inquired Baltar as the Admiral waved his hand.

"Gods no, we know better than that but maybe I should be clearer." stated the Admiral. "We are working on a way to send hopefully an armed drone to Kobol to attack the Tau'ri. We hope to do this by linking together multiple small FTL drives like the ones in Raptors in a cascading chain that would allow each one to be fired seconds after the last jump is finished."

"I see." said Baltar, seeing the first of the major problems that would face a ship like that. "And you are having issues getting all of them to fire when you need them too?"

"Also the amount of FTL drives you would need to do something like that would take up so much space on any drone you wouldn't have much room for any type of warhead." added Jenny Oldstone.

"Yes, the larger the ship the larger the FTL drive is needed." explained the Admiral "But we need to figure this out so that we can hit the Tau'ri in a way they can't hit us."

**Meanwhile on Tauron a line of military heavy trucks moved down the highway, each of the trucks carried almost 25 marines plus their supplies. **Their destination was a training area about a half hour away from their home was a convoy of eight of them, for a total of 200 men and women since they where traveling down civilian roads they had no live ammo in any of their weapons. This was because they did not want any accidents to happen, they had their ammo in locked cases in the trucks that would be opened when they reached the field. The marines were joking and having a good time unaware of the warnings coming from their president.

The driver of the first truck never noticed the SUV that passed by him, that was common enough that he did not take much notice. Again he did not notice that the sunroof of the SUV opened, but he did notice when a figure dressed in black with a long tub tipped with a rocket came out of that sunroof.

"FRAK!" the driver yelled as he tried to swerve but it was too late as the rocket fired releasing a fountain of flame as it left the tub.

The anti-tank Panzerfaust 3, ripped into the body of the military truck and exploded, the shape charged turned the unarmed bus into twisted metal in seconds. Behind the exploding truck the other drivers didn't have time to react as they tried and failed to brake in time. Within seconds, there was a massive pile up on the highway with none of the trucks going anywhere.

The SUV drove away leaving the crash behind as the marines stumbled out, none of them had any ammo on them so they were easy picking for the members of German Commando force hiding in the tall grass, which provided cover. The three light machine gun teams opened up on the uniformed marines, none of them had any weapons apart from knives on them and the ammo was unreachable under fire. For a couple of moments after the crash some of the stunned marines did not know what was going on and they stood in the middle of the field dazed and confused. These men and women did not last long when the Tau'ri bullets started mowing them down. Others tried to run but the machine guns cut them down as well. Still others tried to take cover; they had a better chance but not much against some of the best of the Tau'ri who were in prepared positions with machine guns.

"We surrender!" yelled a few of them throwing their hands up, those who did where not shot at by the Tau'ri.

Smoke brought in a local news traffic viper who expected to see a normal road accident, what they stumbled upon was a blood bath. Colonial marines in full uniforms where on the ground bleeding and dyeing as others stood with their hands up. The blacktop on the road was now covered with bright red blood. The Tau'ri never came out to restrain the surrendered marines, they never went for the prisoners because there was no way to take them off Tauron, and instead they let them sit there in the blood soaked ground with their hands up. The Germans pulled back unseen by the Raptor overhead because they were focused on the blood bath below them.

**The attacks were not just limited to Tauron, on Leonis was the cooperate headquarters of the Colonial Weapon Company Lex Corporations. **Lex Corp was so powerful that its office was located in the massive Artemis Hunter Tower complex. The complex which was a series of six skyscrapers located outside of the capital of Leonis, Luminere. The center of the complex was the tallest skyscraper in the 12 colonies of Kobol, it stood at 1,500 ft. tall and surrounding it was five other skyscrapers that each stood 750 tall. It was the most expensive realist in the colonies and Lex Corp owned one of the smaller skyscrapers all to themselves. It was a clear sign of the power of the company, which provided 80% of all the ground weapons and small arms in the Colonies.

The war had yet to reach Leonis but the massive factories, which was famous across the colonies where already producing the weapons that would win this war and make the board members of Lex Corp very happy. A meeting of the board was taking place and as such the skyscraper which they owned was on locked down with armed guards on multiple floors ready to respond. What they did not know was that high above them in the main tower a group of US Navy Seals force was preparing to go into action.

"So they actually call this company Lex Corp?" inquired the Seals as he prepared his gear.

"Yes." Confirmed another

"Should I expect Superman to come flying over our heads?" laughed the American "Why would they call it that?"

"Well they have no idea who superman is, they wouldn't get it." added the other as they made their final preparation. They had taken over a small office a floor a couple of stories above the roofline of the Lex skyscraper.

"Ok, but if they have someone that looks like Lex Luthor I get to shot him." stated the 1st American as he checked his watch. "It's time."

They pulled out small acid cutters, which cut through the glass, as they removed the glass the cold wind came into the room. The placed the glass down and looked out into the late twilight. Quickly they set up their sniper rifles and aimed at the four men operating an anti-aircraft missile launcher on the roof. Five more walked around three armed with rifles and the others with what looked to be old stinger missiles.

The members did their work; they aimed and fired dropping two men within seconds of each other. The two men were out of view from the main body of men so they fell unnoticed, they then moved onto the next two. Once again they fell only this time it was noticed by another man but before he could raise the alarm, he got a bullet in the head. That left only the four men who were on the missile system. When the first two of those fell it could not go unnoticed by the last two, they were stunned for a moment and that moment allowed the snipers to do their work.

"Roof is clear." Reported one of the Seals as they packed up their gear and headed to their extraction point.

Just below the nine dead men was the members of Lex Corp board, they sat in a boardroom. The large solid oak table was polish to a shine and the men and women who sat around the table thinking about how much money they would make from all the contracts that would be coming in. They did not see their deaths until it was too late; an Owl de cloaked only a couple of feet away from the massive window, which gave the board members of view of the city. What it showed them now was the spinning barrel of the chain railgun. The board members of the largest military company in the 12 colonies of Kobol could not do anything more than scream before golden tracers ripped into the building and their flesh. It lasted only a couple of seconds and within moments, there was nothing but meaty pulp and broken glass. The pilot of Owl doubled checked her work before turning away and cloaking, with no one alive to work the anti-air defense system the Owl moved off without having a round fired at them.

**On the battlefield, the most dangerous single person was an expert sniper and outside the battlefield the most dangerous person was an angry woman**. When both of them are combined, most sane people would go running for the hills. That was the case for Senior Sargent Tatianna Dryagin, to make matters even scarier the woman looking through the scope at a colonial solider was a Russian Spetsnaz trained sniper.

"These people are idiots," stated Tatianna as she watched the colonial forces sleep in their camp. The force of almost sixty colonial soldiers where camping in a field while on a training mission not realizing that they were being shadowed by a team of Russian Spetsnazs. The colonials had only three guards walking around the camp with two more operating a machine gun that they had dug into a foxhole. In total there was five men who were awake trying to protect the sleeping lives of almost sixty men. The colonials had even camped in the middle of a large field right out in the open.

"Well I know the men in our team would put the blame on their woman leader," said her spotter another woman Spetsnaz. Both women shared a look, women in the Special Forces or even combat forces in any Tau'ri nation were rare but that restraint had been removed with a war on women would become just as common on the battlefield as men. Thanks to power armor and other technology it made everyone who had it on as strong if not as stronger then as the strongest human.

"Well from what I heard the Colonials have a long history of letting women in their military." said Tatianna as her spotter shrugged a bit.

"Well they can't be all bad," said her spotter as both woman turned to back to the colonials. Tatianna looked back through her scope as a flash of lightning turned the night into day. The rain was passing to the south but it was still close enough for the light from the lightning bolt to fill the forest with light followed a few seconds later by the rumble of thunder.

"3 seconds." reported her spotter as Tatianna picked her first victim; it was an average looking man who was walking on patrol. She was leading him when suddenly he stopped and looked around including toward the two hidden female snipers. Then instead of moving out away from the camp the man swung his rifle over his back and unzipped his fly and began to take a piss.

"Well that is sure nice of him." Said the spotter

"Sure is." said Tatianna as she brought the crosshairs to the right position, for a second she actually considered shooting him in his manhood but that would have made too much noise. Men tended to scream when they are shot most of all in their manhood. She took aim so that her bullet would hit him right between the eyes and waited. Nature was with her, a flash of lightning filled the night with light and she pulled the trigger.

The flash of lightning along with the flash suppressor masked her and seconds later, the rumble of thunder masked the sound of the rifle firing or the man falling to the ground his zipper still down. None of the other guards or the sleeping soldiers heard a thing. With a single smooth movement, she worked the bolt of her rifle and picked the next guard. She repeated the process; the tricky shot came at the last two the machine gunners who sat in a foxhole. Here she was lucky because one of them was nodding off at his post. She shot the awake one first and worked the bolt fast as the man who was half-asleep woke up. Before he knew what had happened she fired another shot and killed the last guard.

"Posts are cleared move in," radioed her spotter as the rest of the Spetsnaz team moved in. The main force of the team moved in among the sleeping Colonial soldiers and did something that would horrify the colonials. Instead of killing every single one of the sleeping Colonials, the Russians cut the throats of every other sleeping colonials. It was over in only a couple of minutes for the Russians to finish their work and move out leaving the Colonials who they speared to wake up to a horror in a few hours.

**Onboard the HMS Ark Royal Lieutenant Rose Ryan was doing a check of her flight system as her Taita fighter-bomber was moved toward the launch position on the hanger of the Daedalus class warship.**

"God, why did I get this job?" cursed Ryan to herself, but she knew the reasons she had graduated top in her class in both college and in flight school number 1 in her class. That meant she had her pick of posts and instead of taking a spot on a carrier she decided to go experimental. She had no idea she would end up on another world and most of all with the most powerful nuclear bomb ever build by humanity sitting in her weapons bay. "At least the only city on this world is on the opposite side of the planet and is far enough away to not be harmed by the blast."

**The ice world of Aquaris sat on the outer most edge of the solar system and was the coldest of the habitual worlds in the 12 colonies of Kobol**. Due to the temperature being so cold just over 25,000 people called the world home and almost all of them lived in one place, Aquaris. The city itself was once made only mostly of tin and stone since wood was so rare however post Cylon war a new form of building had started which hoped to bring more people to Aquaris in the next couple of years.

The plan was rather simple; the weather above was horrible so they would build down. The city with help from the colonial government was in a multiyear project to build an almost entirely underground city. Being underground, they would be safe from the harsh conditions such as howling ice-cold wind coming from ice covered bay and the snow drifts that could be higher than a man. Aside from protection from the wind and other elements, being underground allowed the temperatures to stay almost the same year round.

The plan called for entire underground parks with reinforced glass and heated lights, streets and shops would all be built underground. It was hopped that if it worked out well enough more people from the more populated planets of the 12 colonies would settle there and in time the planet would get more cities. Sitting just outside the city was something that they couldn't move underground, a spaceport this wasn't the civilian spaceport it belonged to the largest employer on the planet, the Lex Corp Arms company.

Kara Thrace was out in that snow and in that ice as she guided her new Viper through the storm toward an landing strip near a large one storied building. Ground crews where in a constant battle to keep the strip clear of ice and snow and it was a fight they lost most of the time but Starbuck had her orders and somehow she managed to land her new Viper on the black tarmac. She did not mess with turning the engines off and instead powered toward the open hanger door where a man dressed in enough fur lined jackets to make him look like a bear was waiting.

The moment the Viper was in the hanger, they closed the door to keep the heat in and the cold out. When Kara opened her cockpit she was amazed at how warm it was, she could not understand it. Then she saw that a nearby workstation was pouring liquid metal into forms. The heat from the metal allowed the area to be at what most would consider room temperature.

"Lieutenant Thrace?" inquired the man as Starbucks looked down at him. "Thank you for coming to our production center."

"When they said I would bring this bird to a Viper production center I was expecting Leonis or maybe Tauron but not here." admitted Kara as the man nodded his head.

"Those places do have our larger production lines but this smaller line was already retooled to make this new Viper model," explained the man "So once we work out all the production problems here we will be better able to upgrade our other centers."

"I see." confirmed Kara as suddenly alarms began going off.

"What is going on?" inquired the man, within moments more pilots came out and moved toward a stock of older Vipers which were sitting in the hanger.

"Get moving Tau'ri have appeared by Cancercon." yelled another one of the pilots. "We are ordered to scramble."

"But you are only test pilots." countered the man

"Are they armed?" inquired Kara as the man nodded his head. "Then they can fight, get me some fresh fuel."

**On the other side of the ice ball of a world, the sun was high in the noonday sky.** For the first time in days the weather looked to be perfect, aside from the bone chilling cold. Sitting off the coast of the only military base on that side of the planet and the main base of the world was an weather beaten mining ship. The ship sat only a few hundred yards off the coast but it was over a thousand feet down to the ocean floor. An underwater cliff dropped that far from less than a hundred feet below the surface, if the deposit of the mineral had been on top of the cliff it would have been a simple task to get to it even with the ice. It was not on top of the cliff it was under it so the miners had to work to bring the rock out from the deep, it was a slow process made even slower by the ice that entrapped the ship.

"We got another 150 pounds of whatever it is." reported one of the miners to his manager and the Colonial Major who was overseeing the operation.

"We are suppose to get almost 700 pounds a day from this ship." Stated the Officer "Why the delay?"

"Have you looked outside lately?" inquired the miner "If you want to deal with subzero water be my guest, we will get up what we can as fast as we can. If you know a despot in a better location we can mine there."

"This is the only known place in all the colonies with this element but the deposit is estimated to be able to give us around 670,000 tons of the element." said the Officer

"Well maybe if you told us what we are dealing with we can better get it out of the ground." advised the manager as he tried to smooth the waters between the military officer and the miner. Before he could do that alarms began to go off, alarms on a mining ship was not uncommon but the alarms where coming from the shore not the ship.

"What the frak is going on?" inquired the Miner

**Above their heads the Admiral in command of the 2****nd**** fleet assigned to defend the three worlds of Cancercon, Aerlion and Aquaria walked into the CIC of his flagship the Battlestar Hellena. **

"How many ships?" inquired Admiral Ghazal as he moved toward his command center.

"Sir, we have twenty five Tau'ri vessels heading toward Cancercon." reported the Commander of the Hellena to the Admiral who was in charge of not only the ship but all the ships in the 2nd Colonial fleet. "Sir, one of them is a Tau'ri battleship."

"Alright, we may have the edge in numbers but their shields are strong." Reported the Admiral as he looked down at the map table, already an aid had marked the location of the Tau'ri forces on the map of the system. The Tau'ri where making a straight shot toward Cancercon if they could knock out even some of the factories then the war effort would be pushed back by months. Luckily, Cancercon and the agriculture world of Aerlion shared an orbit and Aerlion was on the opposite side of the sun where the Tau'ri was coming from. His other main defense was Aquaria but that only had a single world with low population and like Aerlion it was on the opposite side of the system from the Tau'ri attacking force.

"Move task group 9 through 15 here to get the Tau'ri from the flank." ordered the Admiral as he pushed over half of his defenders around Aerlion into a flanking position. "Replace them with the 19th and 20th group from Aquaria."

That would leave Aquaria with only a single task group, the 22nd which was the smallest and weakest of his groups with only a handful Battlestar to defend the world but with only 25,000 people he had to focus on the worlds with millions of civilians. Since command believed that the Tau'ri fleet numbered only in the low hundred he was facing a quarter of their fleet, if he crushed them he would win the war.

**Onboard the Tau'ri Battleship HMS Britannia Admiral Barker of the Royal Navel grinned, the Colonials where doing what he wanted. **

"Sir, they have moved their forces," reported an officer

"Good, now we begin the operation," reported Admiral Barker

**Sitting out just outside the Dradis range of the colonial defense system was multiple flights of Condor bombers and Eagle fighters waiting for the orders to carry out their attack run. **While the Colonial Dradis could not see them with the help of cloaked Owls closer in to their target world, they watched as the colonial warships, which had been protecting the far side of the planet moved toward what they believed to be the threat from the Tau'ri warships.

"Looks like the Colonials are opening the door of us." said a voice over the radio as Andera sat in the cockpit of Elsa's Revenge. Sitting on the condor bomber's wings and in the weapons bay was 12 new weapons, Dragon Fire bombs.

"Do we have a lock on our target area?" inquired Andera to her weapon's officer

"Yes, looks like the colonials are focusing what defenses they are leaving behind to protecting the major cities on this Aerlion world," said the officer as she double-checked "The missiles path should be cleared to our target area."

"Famous last words." stated Andera as she looked down at the target area, judging from satellite photos it made no sense to bomb the location. It was just fields full of grain waiting for harvest with a few farms spread out in the area where the bomblets build into the missile would fall. "Hell there isn't even a base hidden under the farms it is just that farms, we should be bombing cities not fields."

"No we should be bombing fields," countered Andera with a slight grin. "It is actually pretty smart, the colonials are protecting the cities believing we will go after them and we have firebombs with fire that can't be put out without an Asgard beam weapon."

"So." stated the weapon's officer

"So this planet is the breadbasket of the all 12 worlds." Said Andera "And how do you think Earth would deal with say the breadbaskets in the United States, Brazil and Poland where to suddenly be totally destroyed by fire. Whole harvests gone would mean some very hungry people and hungry people lead to political unrest and unrest leads to governments falling down. We overthrow the Colonial government without firebombing whole cities."

"That is so underhanded I like it." Confirmed the weapons officer

"I feel bad for the farmers." Admitted Andera "But I would rather do this then firebomb a whole city full of civilians. Only a couple hundred at most will die if we do it this way maybe not even that but if we firebomb a city thousands if not hundreds of thousands die."

"Well they were going to do the same to us." said the weapon's officer "War is hell."

"True." admitted Andera

"All flights we have received orders move out, we are to carry out the operation." said their flight leader's voice over the radio.

"Here we go." stated the weapon's officer as the condor's engines came alive and as one the multiple flights of Condor bombers and Eagle fighters moved forward toward the now less guarded Colonial world.

**At that same moment, the Ark Royal exited hyperspace on the opposite side of the system as the rest of the Tau'ri warships. **Before them was the ice world of Aquaria with only three battlestars protecting the single city on the entire planet. Since it was currently night at the only city the main target of the Tau'ri attack the base of Nyx was on the far side of the planet and the couple of ships which had been protecting it had been pulled away to attack the "main" Tau'ri attacking force.

"All hands battle station and launch the Taita and our Eagles." Ordered Captain Taylor as the Ark Royal moved forward to engage the Battlestars and the Vipers and Raptors which was being launched to take on the incoming threat.

The Taita fighter-bomber along with four Eagle fighters left the Ark Royal first. They moved down and away from the Ark Royal as it moved toward the battle with the Colonial Battlestars. The Ark Royal launched the rest of its Eagle fighters as the group of five Tau'ri spacecraft moved away from the main battle. The Ark Royal was drawing attention away from the Taita fighter-bomber with the Mark XVII nuclear bomb onboard along with the Eagle escorts.

**Sorry for the delay, life got in the way and I rewrote this chapter more times than I can count. I hope you enjoyed this chapter even if the bomb has not been dropped…yet. Now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75. **


	51. Chapter 51

**IMPORTANT: Just to give you a heads up, I am going away for a multiple day vacation in little bit over a week. I will try my best to post again before I leave but I cannot make any promises and I will ****not**** update while I am on Vacation so you may have to wait until almost October for the next update. Sorry but it cannot be helped. Now enjoy the chapter.**

**Chapter 51 Brighter than the Sun**

Admiral Barker, the head of the task force carrying out the single largest attack by the Tau'ri forces in the Milkway galaxy, only the operation against the Wraith over Sera in the Pegasus galaxy had more ships. Admiral Barker moved toward the holographic command table that showed up to the second locations of all his ships along with the location of the Colonial ships.

The colonials outnumbered him almost 15 to 1, with his 26 warships going up against the almost 400 warships of the colonials. Now most of their warships where not battlestars and where instead the small Hoplite class ships but they all carried big guns and enough shells to fire at his ships.

The Admiral in command of the colonial forces had moved just as he thought he would do, the Admiral had moved most of his fleet to form a U shape around what he believed to be the target of the Tau'ri advance, Cancercon. Admiral Barker smiled as he saw that the Condor strike force along with the eagle fighter force was moving against only 15 ships protecting the dark side of the agriculture world of Aerlion. The only other populated world was the main target of the operation was Aquaria and that was hardly defended and the Ark Royal would push through them with ease.

He could see the Colonial's plan with ease; their ships had made a U shape with Concercon at the bottom of the U. They expected the Tau'ri to charge straight in to get hit from all side from the colonial ships. They would possibly close the top part of the U to surround the Tau'ri ships, it was not that bad of an idea but it was a plan that dated back to the Battle of Cannae between Rome and Carthage if not before that. Admiral Barker actually grinned as he realized that he knew more about the location of the Colonial forces better than the location of the Colonial high command.

"Alright we are going to split our forces in four groups." said the Admiral as he highlighted the ships on the map and separated them into a single force. "This group will move to the right and take on the Colonial forces here. A matching force will move to the other side and take on the matching colonial force."

Each of the two attacking groups contained seven ships for a total of 14 of the 25 ships in the main attack group.

"We will leave this group here," said the Admiral as he highlighted six ships "As a reserve force to respond to any movements, the remaining ships with the Britannia will move straight into the heart of the Colonial force."

"Alright sir." said the Captain of the Flagship of the fleet, the battleship Britannia.

The orders were sent out as once across the Tau'ri computer networks so every ship knew their orders and which ship and their captain was in command of each attack force.

**The Colonial high command in the system was in overdrive as they attempted to respond to the Tau'ri. **Multiple reports where being placed in front of the Admiral in charge of the 2nd fleet, he had moved his fleet in position to protect the main target of the Tau'ri Canceron. He couldn't let them attack the factories of that world without them they would lose almost a fourth of the heavy industry and production power in the entire 12 colonials.

"Sir, the Tau'ri have split their forces into four groups." reported the Dradis operator as he moved forward and moved plastic tiles which had the type of ship written on them. They had not had the time to get brand new tiles so they used Cylon markers instead of Tau'ri so a battleship was marked as a Basestar. With the markers down he drew a line of their current course across the glass top with a grease pencil.

"Four groups, with their battleship and four destroyers heading straight into the heart of our defenses. Two groups of seven are heading to take on our flanks, with a reserve force of six ships staying back." said the Admiral as he looked at his main target, if he destroyed the battleship then he would destroy their flagship. Destroy the flagship and he would take out their command and control. Then he could take on the smaller forces and destroy them one at a time. "We will focus on their flagship and make sure they can't fire biological weapons at Concercon."

"Sir flash traffic from Caprica!" yelled a wireless operator as she ran up with a piece of paper in her hands.

"I just sent flash traffic to them about the Tau'ri attack they can't have gotten back to us so soon." snapped the Admiral as he grabbed the paper from the wireless operator hands. His eyes widened as he read the short message.

"By the Lords of Kobol," whispered the Admiral

"What sir?" inquired the Commander as the Admiral handed the paper over before turning toward a nearby Colonel.

"Intelligence believes that the Tau'ri will carry out nuclear strikes on civilian centers in response to the attempted biological strike." reported the Admiral as everyone within earshot eyes widened. The Admiral picked up a wireless broadcaster located beside the command table. He pushed a few button and reach the command broadcast channel, with this he got ahold of every Colonial warship and military spacecraft in the system. His message cut through every channel and interrupted broadcasts already in progress.

"Attention, this is Admiral Ghazal we have just learned the high possibility that the Tau'ri are here to deliverer nuclear fire to the world of Concercon," said Admiral Ghazal as every man and woman in the military who heard his words eyes widened. "We will not allow this to happen; we will throw down our lives to defend the people of Concercon. We will make those false god worshipping scum the strength of the Colonial Armed forces and when we are done they will be screaming in Tartarus and those who lie down their lives to defend the innocent will be reward by the Lords of Kobol. I know you will do your duty and in the end we will be victorious."

**The news of the possible nuclear strikes coming to Concercon filled Kara Thrace with rage as she and a flight of 12 vipers head up from the capital city of Aquaria, Heim. **She was too far away to move to take on the forces attacking Concercon, she would have no part in this fight.

"Frak me." cursed Kara, she had the most advanced Viper in the colonies and she had nothing to shot at. Her spirits lifted a bit as she noticed a ship on the very edge of her Dradis screen. A single Tau'ri ship was heading toward her. "Well at least I can help destroy this fraker."

**The Colonial Dradis operators where focused on giving up to the moment tracking of the fast moving Tau'ri ships which were heading toward Concercon. **They were so focused on that that they did not notice when a large group of smaller spacecraft passed within range of their sensors. They were almost a quarter of the way toward Aerlion when they where finally noticed and warnings began to go out.

"Sir I have a lot of Tau'ri spacecraft coming our way." stated a Dradis operator on Aerlion.

"How many?" inquired his ranking officer

"Hard to tell they are flying in close formation, over 300 for sure." Said the operator as more blipps entered Dradis range "Make that 600, frak they are coming right for us. We need every Viper we can get here now."

The report went up to the planet's Admiral but he was under the command of Admiral Ghazal who was focused on the incoming Tau'ri capital ships. He looked down at the report, which had been made in a rush; it was made in such a rush that it had been reported wrong. Instead of a report saying that 600 Tau'ri spacecraft was heading toward Aerlion it said 60 where heading toward them. Someone had forgotten to add the final 0, with that information Admiral Ghazal only allowed 2 flights of Vipers, which had already left from Aerlion to support the defense of Concercon to turn around and head back to Aerlion.

Those two flights for a total of 32 aircraft was all the reinforcements that the 300 Vipers and Raptors had against the 3 Wings of Eagle Fighters, each wings was made out of a 100 fighters for a total of 300 eagle fighters. The rest of the attacking force was almost every single condor bomber the Tau'ri had and 144 of those 300 condor bombers where loaded up with newly designed and built Dragon Fire Bombs. The firebombers where in the last wave of the attack with the Eagles and the 1st flight of Condors before them.

The Eagles flew in ahead of the strike force as the 300 Vipers and the Colonial Warships moved to defend the higher populated cities on the planet. Believing that the target of the Tau'ri would be those cities they were going to do everything in their power to defend those cities and the people in them.

"Sir, we have confirmed Tau'ri fighters heading our way not just their bombers." said a colonel onboard the main battlestar left to defend the dark side of Aerlion.

"First time we have seen them here." said the Commander as he made sure that his Battlestars and smaller ships moved to defend the more populated cities. "Move our Vipers to stand back and cover the holes between the ships do not advance to contact we must hold the line."

**In the Front group of the Eagles were birds off the Yorktown, they had taken off from their ship above the newly captured micro planet of Nysa so they had some of the most fuel of the other birds. **Most of the other Eagles had taken off from Valhalla and would have to stop at Nysa to refuel before heading back.

"Alright looks like they are spreading out in a defensive formation we need to break them up." said Colonel Winters as he flew at the head of the first strike force. The American pilot began to run off target selected by the cloaked Owls, which severed the same purpose as airborne radar systems on Earth such as the E-3 Sentry and others.

As one the flights of Eagles opened fired their long range missiles at both the vipers, raptors and the battlestars themselves. When the missiles began to fly the battlestars opened up with their formidable missile defense barriers. Thousands of guns began firing and as they fired at a certain range they exploded sending hundreds of tinny shards of metal, these shards brought down the incoming Tau'ri missiles. The Vipers and Raptors joined the battle opening fire with their own guns forming a wall of lead in front of the incoming threat. The wall could not stop all their missiles as each Eagle carried 8 missiles and the condors carried 24 each. The missiles began to break through the defenses and began to strike the battlestars, Vipers and Raptors. Holes began to open up as vipers where destroyed and guns on the battlestars fell silent as they took missile hits.

"Constraint all fire above these cities, we need to protect them," ordered the Commander as the colonial shifted their defenses to focus on the defending the main cities. This was the logical defense, against biological strikes and possible nuclear strikes since that the main target of those weapons would be the population centers where they could do the most damage. This however was what the Tau'ri was planning on as the final flight of Condors moved into position, the 144 condors each carried 12 dragon fire bombs for a total of 1,728 bombs each containing thousands of small bomblets which contained Dragon Fire which was modified Colonial Hade's fire which was a descendant of the ancient Greek Fire.

"**We are in launch position." Said the Weapon's officer onboard Elsa's Revenge as the Condor's wings moved out from its swept wing position into a position not unlike any atmosphere bound aircraft. She has two missiles on each wing and 8 missiles located in the bays. **Those bays opened up as the missiles where lowered into position.

"Firing in 3…2…1." said Andrea as she pulled the trigger and the missiles began to fire one by one only seconds apart. Each one cleared their rails and headed toward their targets. The Colonials still focused on defending the population centers and since the colonial's did not detect any radiation coming from the missiles they did not focus on bring them down. Some of them where brought down but of the 1,728 missiles fired 1,597 of those got past the colonial defense line by going around them.

The missiles dove into the atmosphere as the Tau'ri turned to leave, for a moment it looked as if the Colonials had won. The Tau'ri had turned to leave and none of their missiles had reached the population centers on Aerlin, there would be no nuclear explosion of gas attack on those cities full of millions of people.

As a cheer went up from the colonials the missiles dove toward the surface and spread out to their different target areas. The missiles did not form a single solid area instead they formed multiple pockets over some of the most productive farm land in the entire colonies. When all the pockets where added up the entire target area equaled the size of the state of Nevada. At their target height the missiles bodies broke apart as hundreds of small baseball size bomblets each containing the dragon fire liquid began to spread out. Each of the bomblet had small wings attached which allowed them to glide randomly over great distances. Since the target of the attacks was the endless fields, which made up the bread basket of the colonies it was hard to miss.

**It was the middle of the night when the bomblets reached their own preset height as small explosive charges exploded the casing, which held the Dragon Fire liquid.** The liquid spread out over only a couple of square yards but whatever it touch turned into a massive fireball which then began to spread out as it consumed everything it touched.

Farmers in small towns began to panic as they attempted to throw water on the strange fire only to have the fire grow instead of shrink. A few combat veterans remembered Hade's Fire from the Cylon War and attempted to throw sand on the fire only to discover to their horror that the this strange green version liked sand and only grew in intensity. Whole fields of grain became fields of fire as entire harvest, which would have provided the surpluses that kept the people of the colonies well fed began to go up in smoke. Fields where not the only thing hit, homes where not spared and neither was livestock as they felt the horrible flames of the strange green fire. Even the small rivers were on fire as either the bomblets exploded over them or burning pieces of remains from other strikes moved down river spreading the flames.

Everything was going as plan expect for one place, one of the bomblets had fallen to the far north of Aerilon and had landed in the vehicle park of a local city government. The snowplows which sat waiting for winter began to burn and in their confusion one of the workers began to dump a load of Salt on the fire instead of sand. This caused the fire to go out leaving a blackened mass, which resembled thick black tar, the Colonials accidentally discovered how to put out the Dragon fire in a way that not even the Tau'ri knew about.

That discovery was unknown to the Tau'ri and it wouldn't make much of a difference, as the Condors and Eagles headed out of the system to make the hyperspace jump to Nysa and Valhalla the dark side of Aerlion had multiple green spots, which looked like glowing green scars across the surface. The Tau'ri attack on the breadbasket of the Colonies had been a total success.

**At the same moment that the Eagles and Condors where carrying out their attack on Aerlion the Tau'ri warships where moving as fast as colonial Vipers. **To the Colonial credit they did adjust the movement of the Tau'ri ships on their maps so they were not surprised as how fast the Tau'ri ships closed the distance.

To the surprise of the Tau'ri the colonials began to rapid fire cannons at a range beyond their normal range. The answer came soon the Tau'ri sensors detected the incoming shells, since there was no air in space to resist the shells as they traveled so they were going at full speed. The only reason why the colonial battle doctrine didn't call for shelling at such at distance was because most of the shells miss at far range. The Colonials seemed to have accepted that a large percentage of their shells would miss as they tried to hit the Tau'ri first. They did hit first as thousands of shells began to strike the shields of the Britannia and the four destroyers which had followed it into the heart of the Colonial defenses.

The shields took the blow with ease, there was so many guns firing at such a rate that the constant blows where beginning to lower the percentage of shield strength. The Destroyers and the Britannia responded by opening fire with their own rail guns. The computer control railguns began to pick off the incoming Colonial shells, not all of them but a large percentage, which allowed the shields more breathing room.

"Sir, we are in range," said the weapon's officer on the Britannia

"Fire," ordered the Admiral as the bow of the Battleship began to glow a deep green. Light gathered for only a few seconds before shooting out in a beam of energy, which cut through a Colonial Battlestar as if it was made out of paper. The battlestar held together for a moment before exploding in a giant fireball.

The Ancient Particle Cannon was the strongest single weapon on the Britannia it also had the longest cool down time at 90 seconds. While that was cooling down and preparing to fire again the four Asgard beam weapons went to work as they began to rapid fire at the Colonial ships. The Asgard beam weapons had a shorter range then the Ancient Particle Cannon but they could fire almost every 30 seconds and there was a lot of targets for the Tau'ri ships. The first surprise that came to the crew of the Tau'ri was when a beam strike hit one of the Colonial Battlestars but it did not blow up, it stayed in the fight and kept firing. A second strike did destroy the ship but when the event happened, again the Tau'ri began to figure out what.

"Sir, looks like some of their ships have been upgraded with heavier armor plates." reported an officer as the Admiral nodded his head.

"Very well, have those ships targeted with two beam strikes," ordered the Admiral as swarms of vipers came swooping in firing their guns and launching their missiles. They were nothing more them angry flies to the battleship but whenever a Rail gun shot them down a shell from one of the battlestars and other colonial ships hit the shields.

**The Colonial forces where focused on the Battleship and destroyers in the center the two forces, which went up against the flanks of the Colonial line, began to do battle. **The Daedalus class Cruisers and the Destroyers did not have the Ancient beam cannon that the Battleship did and they only had two Asgard beam weapons but they were still destroying ships with ease. The Colonial line which started out in a U shape was now forced back into a basic straight line.

"Order all ships to begin to fire NA-89s." ordered Admiral Ghazal as the 37th ship under his command was destroyed, it was time to go nuclear. "And every nuclear weapon we have."

**Almost at once, the Colonials began to fire the nuclear shells out of their guns and battlestars began to fire every nuclear weapon they had at the coming Tau'ri. **The shells themselves did not carry a large amount charge but with each of the remaining ships firing shells as fast as Tau'ri rail guns the impact the shells caused the Tau'ri to take notice.

"Outer shield down to 57%" reported an operator on the Britannia, the Britannia like all the other battleships and carrier had a duel shield system, the other shield was designed like a bubble like the Asgard had on their ships but under that they had a skin tight to the ship.

"Sir! The Melbourne's shields are failing!" yelled an other officer as the Australian Destroyer which was to the front right of the Britannia and had been getting almost as much fire as the battleship shield failed under the constant fire from everything the Colonials had.

"Beam the crew onboard!" yelled the Admiral as the Melbourne exploded and the Colonials claimed their first destruction of a Tau'ri ship in the war as the 48th Colonial ship went up in a fireball. The destroyer the smallest of the Tau'ri warships aside from the stealth ship Akula was gone as first the colonial nuclear missiles hit and then the reactor exploded with the force equal to multiple mark IX nuclear warheads. "How many did we get?"

"Just over half of crew." reported an officer as he lowered his head at the loss of almost 75 men.

"Alright time to take off the kid gloves, get me a targeting solution on the biggest military base on that world and launch the drones." ordered Admiral Barker.

**Admiral Ghazal like so many other colonial officers and men cheered when the Tau'ri warship exploded as it disappeared from Dradis. Suddenly the cheers grew loader.**

"Look the battleship is going!" yelled a voice as Admiral Ghazal turned to look at the TV screen that showed real time images from one of his flagship's gun cameras. The Battleship had multiple points of light coming from the ship but it wasn't the yellow light that had appeared when the smaller ship had gone up. Now this was a bluish color, the light turned out to be multiple small sources of light which began to flood out of the ship. For a moment they swarmed around the ship.

"It isn't going up it's a weapon." Snapped Admiral Ghazal as the blue sources of light shot out of the ship and began to take down vipers on their attack runs. They even followed the vipers as if they where missiles before slamming into them killing the pilot and destroying the fighter. The bulk of the strange weapon flew off into a task group of six battlestars and slammed into the first one. The blue lights tore into the battlestar and ripped it apart before splitting off into five separate groups and like a the fingers of on a hand it reached out and destroyed the remaining five battlestars.

"What the frak is that?" yelled an officer

"I have no idea, keep firing nuclear missiles," ordered Admiral Ghazal as the remaining members of the 2nd fleet held the Tau'ri at bay as best they could. They had gotten reinforcements from the task groups from other worlds in the system as they reformed their line against the Tau'ri. They were aided by the missile fire coming up from the surface of Concercon.

"Admiral, our ships shields are falling to dangerous levels they can't take much more of this fire." Said an officer on the Britannia

"Alright we have done our job, are we in range to target Concercon?" inquired Admiral Barker

"Yes sir, we have this base here within range looks to be similar in size to some of our sub bases on Earth." said an officer. "No special forces operating on base and it is within view of their capital city on the world. It also has what appears to be a command and control bunker under the main buildings."

"Very well, target that base and once we finish it we will fall back." ordered Admiral Barker as he sat down in his chair. He watched a greenish glow gather at the front of his ship before firing off.

"Tau'ri have fired again sir!" yelled a Colonial officer to Admiral Ghazal

"What ship?" inquired the Admiral

"Sir it is aimed at the surface." reported the officer.

"My Gods." Said Admiral Barker

**The beam of energy shot straight through the atmosphere super air it as it went.** Lightning bolts and instant rain began to fall as the beam of energy hit the center main control buildings of the Colonial base. The military buildings where instantly vaporized and the people in them felt nothing as their lives where ended. The beam cut through the ground to the command bunkers and destroyed them and the higher-ranking officers hiding in them. The civilians who had not reached the civilian bunkers watched from behind gas masks as the beam of energy spread out until it covered a part of the sky. Then as suddenly as it appeared, it was gone and left everyone who had seen it confused and frightened.

"Target destroyed." reported the weapon's officer on the Britannia as the sensors showed that they had scored a direct hit on the base.

"Alright, let's pull back." ordered Admiral Barker "As we pass the Melbourne beam onboard anything we can and leave a mark IX on a timer to destroy anything that is left."

They all knew that nothing of importance would have survived the explosion of the Melbourne's reactor but it was better to be safe than sorry a Mark IX exploding would remove any chance of that happening.

The retreating Tau'ri was a welcomed sight to the Colonials they had protected Canceron, destroyed a Tau'ri warship and forced the Tau'ri to retreat. The cost was great and would not be known until the number of Battlestars, other ships, Vipers and Raptors where totaled up along with the amount of people who had died. Then everything changed as the wireless came alive with screams.

**At the same moment that the Colonial capital ships were, trading shots with their Tau'ri counter parts. **A much smaller battle was taking place as a single Tau'ri warship powered toward Aquaria. The Colonial battlestars and the ground defenders opened up with guns and long missiles missiles. Unlike their brothers and sisters the ships who where protecting this ice world went straight to the nuclear option. To their amazement it forced the Tau'ri ship back but that is what the Tau'ri wanted. Thinking they had an edge they pushed forward in attempt to destroy the Tau'ri ship. They did not pay attention to the flight of fire spacecraft descending to the side of a normal approach to the city of Heim.

"I have contact at my four o'clock." Reported a Viper in Starbuck's flight, she turned her head to see that to her right and below her was a group of five Tau'ri spacecraft. She recognized four of them as belonging to the Tau'ri fighters but one was a type of ship she had not seen before. They were escorting the new craft; there was only one thing she knew that needed escort a bomber. Her fears where confirmed as the craft made a slight turn and she spotted a long pod under one of its wings.

"Tau'ri bomber, we have a Tau'ri bomber heading toward the surface!" yelled Starbuck as she turned her Viper around 180 degrees and dove toward the flight of aircraft. The other members of her flight followed her down but the Tau'ri where ahead of them and they were just as fast going into the atmosphere as the Viper.

"Once we get them in atmosphere we will have the advantage." said Starbucks over the wireless to her squadron of test pilots from the Viper factory at Heim. "They can't do the turns we can without ripping those wings off f and in atmosphere we being smaller can make tighter turns. Use our guns and get in close."

**Ahead of them, the Lt. Rose Ryan noticed the Colonial Vipers chasing them as the dove into the atmosphere. **They were nearing the break off point as she brought the Taita fighter-bomber into a level flight. The Taita was now similar to any advanced aircraft and had to follow the same rules. She leveled out the flight as the Vipers did the same above them. Lt. Ryan flipped a few switches as the scram just intact located behind the cockpit opened up and took a deep breath of cold air.

"Alright we are going to dive down on them from above," ordered Starbucks as she strained her eyes to see the Tau'ri spacecraft in the pitch-black sky. The Tau'ri had panted their ships black so they were only dark shapes in the sky. "Focus on the bomber and…."

Before Starbuck could answer the bomber, shot forward at such speed that not even a missile could have beaten it in a head-to-head race.

"What the frak!" yelled another one of the pilots.

"How could anyone take that speed?" inquired another.

"Where is it going?" asked another "Heim is the other way."

"Take down those fighters," ordered Starbuck as she dove on the Eagles which broke into pairs as a dogfight broke out in the midnight sky. The spun around and charged straight toward the flight of 8 Vipers, flashes coming from the wings of the Tau'ri fighters told her what was coming her way. She pulled the trigger as all five of her cannons fired, within moments a blinding flash of light happened in front of her. She had shot down the incoming air-to-air missile. Three other vipers where not so lucky as they exploded in giant fireballs, the other vipers where not upgraded like hers.

The colonial dove down on the Tau'ri their cannon shooting however, the Tau'ri fighters were painted black and they blended in with night sky. The darkness did not affect the Tau'ri as they opened up with their own guns and brought down two more Vipers.

"I got one!" yelled a voice over the wireless as Kara turned her head to see that yes, a Tau'ri fighter was smoking but it lite an orbital booster and shot out toward space and away from the battle. Now it was three vipers against three Tau'ri. Next thing she knew two more explosions filled the sky.

"Flight check in." ordered Kara but she got no response she was alone against three Tau'ri fighters. She turned her viper as she saw a yellow plum of light and shot down another missile. She fired her cannons at the Tau'ri fighter, which pulled a turn she did not think was possible in that large of bird. She missed only to have to jerk away as another black fighter dove on her from above. It over shot her, she spun and fired and was reward with seeing cannon shells strike her enemy but the bird kept flying and turned for another pass.

**The Taita fighter-bomber roared over the ice and snow covered landscape, the white snow covered trees began a blur as everything else did at the speed she was going. **The Taita's scram jet engine swallowed the cold air and threw it out of the back at such speeds that made the Colonial DRADIS operators believe that a missile was coming in instead of an aircraft. She was going at such speed that the sonic boom could be heard for miles around, she surpassed the record speed of the SR-71 blackbird by breaking Mach 3 before breaking Mach 4 and Mach 5. She felt her bird shake as it reached hypersonic speed, at this speed she could not do turn the bird in anyway without having the aircraft fall apart around her. At that speed, she was moving so fast that she passed from night to day within a couple of minutes.

Her heads up display showed her the distance toward her target, the intelligence photos did not show much a couple of low concreate buildings spread out over two hundred square miles. The largest buildings appeared to be a couple of giant communication dishes. According to the reports all those buildings where a linked together underground and had bunkers full of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. There were places in the base for both production and research into WMDs and because of this the base was spread out to make it next to impossible that a single accident could take out the entire base.

The Taita passed over the shoreline marking the slow down point as Lt. Rose Ryan slowed down the Taita as she neared the bomb release point. Alarms where beginning to go off in her ears but her heads up display told her she was not in too much trouble. She had flown past the colonial main defense line, the secondly defense line was now just getting a lock on her and had not even fired yet.

"60 seconds." reported Rose as she flicked a switch and the weapon bay under her opened up to show the Mark XVIII nuclear bomb. From the outside, it did not look like much, just a normal size aircraft bomb maybe slightly longer than normal with more warning labels across the side. She passed over the far coast and over the base itself, the ship on the surface was hardly of note and she paid it no mind.

Onboard the mining ships the crew looked up to see the roaring black aircraft past over their heads as it passed into the base.

"30 seconds. May God have mercy on them," reported Rose as she took a breath, if she was going to get a cancelation order this was the last point. It did not come as she reached the drop point she pushed a button on the stick, she felt the Taita lighten as the Mark XVIII fell away. She spun the aircraft 90 degrees and counted down from 10, this was to make sure the bomb was safely away from the sonic boom that was to follow.

As the bomb fell away, a large parachute deployed as death descended down toward the ice covered plant. The second she reached zero, she punched the Taita as the scramjet took a deep gup of ice-cold air. She held nothing back as she shot forward breaking not only the sound barrier within seconds but hypersonic barrier as well. She had less than 40 seconds to get as far away as she could before the bomb went off.

She ran down the seconds in her mind as her bird reached hypersonic speed at Mach 7, she ran like a frighten rabbit because she was afraid. When she hit zero she held her breath, nothing happened. She flew on for another few seconds worrying that she would have to turn around and drop the Mark IXs to destroy the Mark XVIII when suddenly a blinding flash of light came behind her and the noonday sun on Aquaria was lessened by the light of the bomb.

The heads up display on the aircraft was white out along with everything else, the atomic light adjusting visor she wore turned totally black in a vain attempt to compensate even then she was flying blind and her only hope was to fly straight and true.

**Alarms began going off on the Ark Royal as the sensors detected the Mark XVII going off on the other side of the planet. **

"We have detention," reported an officer as Captain Taylor stood up on his bridge and looked out at the planet. The Ark Royal was on the opposite side of the planet facing the sun, however the flash from the bomb was brighter than the sun and from its position Aquaria casted a shadow over the Ark Royal.

"I can see that," stated Captain Taylor as he looked at the flash, suddenly alarms began going off.

"Sir the detention is stronger than it should be," explained an officer as the sensors began to gather information about the massive nuclear explosion which was happening on the other side of the planet.

"How?" inquired Captain Taylor

"Unknown sir but the explosion is almost double the strength it should be." Reported the officer as the computer ran through the effects of the bomb on the planet. Captain Taylor's eyes widened as he saw what the effects would be.

"Get all our space craft off world now." ordered Captain Taylor

**Above the city of Hein in the dark midnight sky Kara Thrace and the Eagles did battle, suddenly the sky turned a bright white. **It was as if she was lying down in a sauna it was so bright it was hard to see her controls.

"A nuke?" said Kara as she turned toward the city of Hein as she did the light remained the same but even in that bright of light she could see no giant fireball rising over the city but the same bright light was coming from that direction too, it was coming from every direction.

A fireball was rising but not over the city but on the other side of the planet, the light from the blast was so strong and powerful that it was brighter than the sun on the other two worlds and for a moment there appeared to be two stars in the sky. In a normal nuclear strike the classic mushroom cloud was expected the mark XVIII was so powerful that it would never take the form of a mushroom instead, a solid dome of destruction began to spread out across the ice-covered world. Trees where first blown down, then burst into flames before finally vaporizing as the explosion radiated outwards. The ice and snow two things that were extremely common on the planet vaporized in an instant, any animal life it came upon were killed instantly by the explosion. The colonial base which was designed to take multiple nuclear strikes and survive was vaporized as the very stone melted and turned into liquid before reaching a gas like state.

**Unknown to the Tau'ri they had dropped their bomb within a mile of the only deposit of Naqaudah in the 12 colonies and this had the same effect as a throwing a gar of gasoline on a fire**. It increased the power behind the strike. Lt. Ryan was about to pull back on the scramjet to slow down when an alert came down from the Ark Royal.

"What do you mean don't slow down?" yelled Lt. Rose Ryan over the radio to the Ark Royal.

"The bomb blast is stronger than we thought a lot stronger you need to get into space now. The shock wave from the blast is coming toward you and if you run into it you will go down." Explained Captain Taylor

"I am in front of the shock wave!" snapped Rose before she remembered she was in front of the wave but the wave was going out across the entire planet so she would eventually hit it. She looked down at her sensors she was only just in front of the shockwave. "I can't change my course while I am at this speed and I can't slow down to make the turn because I will be cover come by the wave."

"You need to get into space," ordered Captain Taylor as an idea came into the American Navy officer head. She moved her hand to the weapons control pad and armed the two IX nuclear bombs located under her wings.

"I am dropping the Mark IX and firing my missiles if I lighten my bird I may be able to turn the bird," explained Lt. Ryan as she felt the Taita lighten as the two mark IX fell away, she fired the missiles as well. As she did she pulled up on the stick and to her amazement the aircraft's nose came up as she flew past her own slower missiles. The explosion of the two Mark IX were loss in the much larger explosion which was engulfing the entire surface of Aquaria.

"**Die you Frakers!" yelled Starbuck as she fired her cannons at the Tau'ri fighters, they have brought down her fellow pilots but they had not brought her down even though they outnumbered her 3 to 1. **She fired a long burst from her cannons; she was rewarded when the Tau'ri fighter began to smoke but it didn't go down. Then to her amazement, the fighter did a turn that should have caused the pilot to black out before shooting up into space. She turned toward where she knew the next fighter should be only to see that it too was heading up into space. Not wanting them to get away she moved up after them and as she climbed she began to receive multiple calls over the wireless.

"What the frak is that?" was the most common wording as Starbuck reached a low orbit that is when she saw it. A line of fire radiating across the planet at unnatural speed, it stretched from horizon to horizon as it gave off a sick reddish gold light, the light of a nuclear fire.

"How could that be real?" inquired Kara with a wave of fear as the saw that the light was slowly fading as the blast lost energy. She looked over her other shoulder to see a matching line of nuclear fire was coming from the other direction as well as from the North and South, all of them would collide somewhere near Heim. She tried to hit the wireless to get into contact with the people on the ground but by the time she did the first wave, the one from the west smashed into the city, followed seconds later by the other three. The waves of nuclear fire moved through each other losing their energy as they did and within a couple of moments the lights began to fade only to be replaced. Nearby Heim one of the national forests was burning as the trees became giant torches visible from space. Starbuck could even see the fires burning in Heim from orbit, she wondered how many people had died and hoped that since Heim was mostly underground that it took the hit better than most.

In her stunned wonderment she had forgotten about the Tau'ri fighters in front of her, only when her Dradis beeped did she noticed that the fighters where gone but another Tau'ri spacecraft few only a few hundred yards away from her.

"The bomber." Said Kara as she looked at the strange craft with the image of a woman dressed in black and red with a scythe painted on the side. Neither one of them moved to attack the other both pilots, a woman judging from the shape of the pilot where too stunned by the level of destruction before them. The two spacecraft flew around the planet toward the drop zone, Starbuck eyes widened as she saw what had become of the ice-covered world.

The massive seas had become seas of lava as it moved freely over the surface of the planet, judging by how fast her alarms where going off the lava itself was now highly radioactive. The ice had been blown away and not a single tree could be seen, the blue world had become a red one. That was not the most impressive massive pieces of Aquaria had been blown up into low orbit and it was not just some pieces of rock some of them where the size of mountains. She flew by what she though had to have been a part of the Ice Ridge mountain Range but she was not sure. As she got closer to the actual drop zone, she saw that the entire surface of the planet was gone and a massive crater that had to be at least a couple hundred miles across and gods now how deep was filling up with lava.

"The Tau'ri can do this?" inquired Kara as she looked at the destruction that spread out across the entire planet. She turned to look at the bomber. "They did this with only a single bomber, by the Lords of Kobol."

Lt. Ryan looked at her work, the planet was devastated beyond even what she thought possible the sensors on the Taita reported that the area of total destruction was over 900 miles radius compared to the planned 500 miles. At the point of detention, she had somehow made a hole that was almost 350 miles across and almost 50 miles deep. It actually breached the crust of the planet and reached deep into the mantle. No one could be living on one-half of the planet and the other half was devastated but there had to be people alive down there.

"My God," said Lt. Ryan over the radio not realizing she was broadcasting on an open channel, so everyone could hear her.

"You Damn Tau'ri Frakers! You will pay for this!" came the cry of someone over the radio as multiple flights of Vipers came toward the Taita fighter-bomber. Lt. Ryan did not want a fight and so sure turned and flew back toward the Ark Royal, she was the last bird back onboard and the moment she was onboard they turned and powered up their hyper drive. The Tau'ri ship disappeared leaving behind untold destruction on a level that none of the colonials believed even possible.

**Well I hope you liked this chapter and the multiple battles which took place across the entire chapter, I would like to thank everyone who reviewed and I ask that you keep reading. Now I ask that you keep on reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	52. Chapter 52

**Chapter 52 Echoes of the Boom**

The trees where burning in the distance as casting grim light over the land as Colonial Marines moved through the remains of Heim, the normally ice cold wind which blew off the bay was now burning hot. The marines moved in full combat space suits, this was to help protect them from radiation which was near the top of scale. Almost no building in the city was standing a nd the only thing which could be ID as what it once was the Temple which sat on the island in the middle of the bay. Colonial Raptors flew overhead as civilians where taken off world, they also hovered overhead to provide light to the workers trying to find life. The one thing that they had going in their favor for finding people was that the city was mostly underground and the people had some warning about a Tau'ri ship heading their way. There was city bunkers dating back to the Cylon war and that is where the search started.

"I got someone!" yelled a marine as he saw a hand sticking out from the rubble, he climbed up the rubble of a Viper production center and grabbed the hand. "Don't worry I got you."

The hand did not close and it was cold and lifeless against the marine's own hand, he pulled and it came up and nothing else.

"Gods!" cursed the marine as he held onto the lifeless stump of a woman's hand before letting it drop down onto the rubble. He paused for a moment and took in the scene of destruction all around. "Damn those Tau'ri damn them all."

**Kara Thrace sat in the flight ready room of some battlestar who's name excepted her at the moment her mind was racing with the images of what she had saw.** A blinding flash of light, one brighter than any star she had ever seen brighter than a camera flash right in front of her eyes brighter then what she thought possible. After the flash came, a wave of fire and destruction, which engulfed an entire planet, true it was the smallest planet in the 12 colonies but it still engulfed the entire world. She could not wrap her mind around something like that, what sort of power did their cousins have at their command. What effect would something like that happen on any other world, how many millions if not billions would die if they decided to destroy another planet. Canceron had 6.7 billion souls, Caprica had 4.9 billion, Tauron had 2.5 billion all of them could die within an instant by whatever that bomber dropped on Aquaria killing Gods know how many of the 25,000 people who called the ice world home. In her mind's eye, she saw her home world of Caprica burning with dead bodies lying in the streets with skyscrapers melted like candles. She placed her head in her hands as she fought back a tears as her body shook with rage and fear.

"Lt. Thrace." said a voice as Kara looked up to see an older man dressed in perfectly clean and pressed uniform, he had the bars of an Admiral on his shoulders. Kara jumped up and snapped to attention.

"At ease Lt." said the Admiral "I am Admiral Ghazal commander of the 2nd fleet."

"Sir, Lt. Kara Thrace of the Battlestar Galactica." Reported Kara

"I know that, I also know that the Viper in my hanger is a new prototype that is going into production." explained Admiral Ghazal in a business like voice, that sounded like it belonged to a career officer who had never seen real combat. She decided right then that, this man who had to be old enough to fight in the Cylon war had to be a behind the line officer, a desk jockey jumped up to the rank of Admiral. "Now tell me what happened on Aquaria you spotted a Tau'ri bomber?"

"Yes, sir well I believe it was a bomber sir." explained Kara, she knew what it had to be but wasn't totally sure. "My gun camera should have got an image of it after whatever it was their fighters where escorting it and then it took off at some gods know what speed. Next time I saw it the blast had happened."

"I see." Said the Admiral "And you didn't shot down this bomber?"

"Kind of hard sir, it was already pass us and then it shot forward too fast for me or anyone else to shot down." defended Kara

"Alright I didn't mean to sound like this was your fault but we have a world burning world and Gods know how many people dead. We need to find out what happened." stated Admiral Ghazal

"I will tell you what happened, the Tau'ri came and beat us down." Snapped Kara "Tell me how many ships did we lose? How many did the Tau'ri loss?"

"We lost a lot but we forced them back and we took down one of their ships." Stated Admiral Ghazal as he glared at this pilot who stood up to him. "Now, I am ordering you to take your prototype Viper to the nearest production center so that we can start turning out them as fast as possible."

"Yes, sir." Confirmed Kara as she snapped to attention and stormed out of the room.

**Lt. Ryan sat in the flight ready room of the Ark Royal as it journeyed through hyperspace toward Nysa. **She had finished giving her report about the bombing and had sat down in the ready room to get some alone time. While the Union Jack hung on the wall, it was in sense a copy of all the other Daedalus class cruisers. She had closed her eyes and was about to fall asleep in the padded seat when a knock on the door frame caused her to snap awake. Standing in the doorway was Captain Taylor, he waved at her to remain sitting as he entered the room.

"I just wanted you to know I sent your report to Valhalla along with our sensor readings from the blast. They will look into what happened and why the blast was larger than we believed." stated Captain Taylor "Would you like to know what we unofficially believe?"

"Yes, sir." confirmed Rose Ryan "The blast was larger than even what I thought and that was already unbelievable big."

"Our best guess is that there was an unknown vein of Naquadah near the surface and that caused the increase in the blast yield." explained Taylor. "We don't know for sure but that is the best answer we have at the moment. They tell me that they are going to send a recon bird in to study the effects of the operation but from all reports it appears to be a success."

"Good, did we lose anyone?" inquired Lt. Ryan as the Captain lowered his head.

"Yes, one ship an Austrian destroyer the Melbourne was loss we lost just over half the crew 81 men and women." explained Captain Taylor

"How was it loss? The shields should have stopped almost anything the Colonial's have and if it was failing the ship would have pulled out of action." Stated Lt. Ryan

"From what we have managed to gather it was a damn accident blown power relays brought down a part of their shield." explained Captain Taylor before shaking his head. "We like to think that we have mastered this new technology but we haven't and mistakes happen and it costed lives."

"On both sides." Stated Lt. Ryan "Sir what now?"

"We hope that the Colonials grow some common sense and give up the fight." explained the British Captain "But that doesn't really matter that much to us, we have been ordered back to Earth."

"To be put in front of a commission and integrated." Stated Lt. Ryan "Like it was my fault that I dropped it on the target they picked."

"No, apparently the US navy posted a photo of you and that Taita fighter bomber of yours on facebook and it has gone viral." explained Captain Taylor "They want you for some PR stunts they have planned and to raise war bonds. You have somehow become a sort of hero, the woman who hit back at the Colonials for what they did. Your face and your aircraft is all over the news and social media, that is why we are going back to Earth instead of just sending you through the gate. They want your aircraft and that doesn't fit through the gate unless you break it down."

"Great I have become a damn PR person. I will be fighting this war by waving to a camera instead of what I was trained to do." cursed Lt. Ryan before shaking her head. "It will be nice to see Earth again, visit my boyfriend and my parents."

"Yes, I want to see my wife and daughter too but first we have to stop at Nysa to help refuel the Eagle fighters." stated Captain Taylor "that shouldn't take long and the rest of the fleet is gathering there but I want you ready to fly in case something happens."

"No problem." Confirmed Lt. Ryan as she snapped to attention as the Captain returned the salute and left the room.

**Colonel Jager stood in the copula of his Leopard III tank, he looked out over the area he was preparing for a very special arrival. **He had 15 Leopard tanks plus armored vehicles and infantry soldiers armed with heavy machine guns and anti panzers rockets. He spread his tanks and other vehicles out over the area of action but he put his tank along with seven other tanks belly side down on a small rise over the landing area. This move which dated back to the earliest day of WW2 maybe even before that allowed the bulk of the tank to remain protective by a small hill with only the top turret with its main gun above the rise.

The infantry he deployed forward, they dug foxholes to protect themselves and used natural covering to hide the bulk of their positions. He was not perfectly hidden and that was the point he had three of the new decoy tanks, which was basically holographic projectors which showed a picture perfect image of whatever the officer wanted, in this case three Leopard tanks about a 50 meters away from his position on the other side of the rise.

"I wish we had a shield generator." Companied his driver "We wouldn't have to hid we would be able to stand in open ground and destroy everything we see."

"It would make us sloppy." Said Jager "But yes I would like a shield as well but from my understand not even the ancients figured out how to make a personal shield that could work in combat."

"I saw a report about how some member of Atlantis team found a personal shield." countered the gunner "It said something along the line of it was as small as a match box and could protect the entire body."

"I saw the same report." admitted Jager "But did you not read past first paragraph? The shield is skintight and stops everything aside from air coming in and out. So if we had one on our Leopard here and tried to fire a shell we would get the blow back and we would kill ourselves without own weapon. Same is true with the infantry."

"But there is other shields right, Asgard and the Gua'uld?" inquired the gunner "The Cerberus has shields and they can fire."

"Which is based off the Tok'ra and some faction from of Asgard based in the Pegasus galaxy shield design. They can't have it one while moving, the shield isn't even that strong a good shot from our gun here or a rocket will break the shield." explained Jager "Good against small arms fire and grenades but that is about it."

"Better than nothing." stated the loader "But question how come our ships can do both and have strong shields?"

"I am not totally sure," admitted Jager "Likely it has something to do with the size of the generator system and the power requirements which allow both. We can't put a hyper drive on our Leopard and expect it to travel the stars."

"Well this baby can use the Stargate." countered the gunner "I'll take that."

"True." laughed Jager as a buzzing sound filled the air, he turned his gaze toward the source there coming over the horizon were four Osprey ground attack aircraft. The spacecraft had so far not been involved in the war against the Colonials, it was modeled after the A-10 Warthog and lacked the range to reach Colonial Space and it wouldn't be able to carry out it's designed mission to provide close in air support. The four Ospreys flew over his head before splitting off into two pairs and began to patrol. Then he saw something he had only seen in classified reports.

It looked like one of those Comanche attack helicopters that was almost adopted by the US army before it was canceled. It appeared as if they had taken the basic frame added two engines to the side which proved the ability to fly and hover like any normal helicopter and removed the blades. This allowed it to travel through the gate.

"Sir what is that?" asked the driver who also had his head sticking out of the front of the tank. "I haven't seen that before."

"I believe it is called an Adder like the snake." Explained Jager as the side of the replacement helicopter opened up rising short wings into position, under each wing was a mix of missiles and missile pods. "One of those experimental aircraft that has been rumored. An Owl and or an Eagle can't follow us through the gate and Jumpers are kind of rare so they had to find an aircraft that could come with us through the gate."

"Kind of makes sense, they have habit of naming stuff after animals all our vehicles are named after cats and the aircraft is named after birds." added the driver as a different sounding roar filled the air. They looked up to see a strange spacecraft which was coming in for a landing. It had colonial army markings as large landing gears came out and with a heavy thud the surface of Valhalla.

"Armor piercing." ordered Jager as his loader who like all of the tank crew had a thinner version of power armor lifted an anti-armor round from the rack and placed it into the breach before slamming it close. Jager himself pulled back on the heavy 50 caliber machine gun which rested on a rotating turret beside him, he raised it into position and waited to see if he had to use it. The side of the ship opened up to show a long ramp and in that ramp he noticed multiple colonial soldiers in full uniforms standing around behind them was their tanks.

"This doesn't look like Tauron." stated one of the soldiers as he stood their with a gun slung behind his back. The other soldiers were not paying attention they just wanted off the Atlas transport and hadn't noticed that the grass was too tall for the Winter on Tauron. In fact there was not supposed to be any grass they were planning to land on a base so it would have been paved.

"What the frak?" inquired another as she noticed strange tanks had their guns on them and a strange aircraft hovered nearby weapons ready. Their commander and the others just stood there stunned until they looked up to see the deck crew standing over them on the raised catwalk which ran around the top of the Atlas. All of them where armed and had weapons pointed right at them.

"Welcome to Vahalla, we would like to thank you for flying Delta Force Airlines." laughed one of them, it was clearly an inside joke of some kind.

"Surrender!" ordered another as one by one the soldiers raised their hands. Seeing this more Tau'ri soldiers appeared from the fields of Valhalla and moved forward, tanks appeared on the rise and as the Colonial soldiers where marched away as POW teams of Tau'ri moved onboard to start the process of unloading and studying the equipment. The Tau'ri had just captured intact colonial ground forces including tanks and small arms.

**The images where horrifying to anyone from the 12 colonies of Kobol or the 13 tribes of Kobol as some of the more hard lined people had started calling themselves, those who did that counted Earth as the 13****th**** tribe.** People stood in the streets in public squares on every world watching screens which normally showed adds. They were seeing images of a burned and blackened world, of the remains of a city, of green fire raging across farm land and lastly they saw the remains of multiple battlestars floating dead in space. It was horrifying images but one image was being put forward above all others, a sign of hope.

Sitting out in the bay outside of Heim sat the Temple of the god Aquaria, Hermes the messenger god. His temple had somehow made it through the horrible event in good condition; the white marble walls which surrounded the temple had been burned black but still stood. Four of the main towers of the central temple had fallen down but the one that came out of the dome in the center remained standing. The single part of the dome that had fallen in showed the golden cover statue of the god his arm raised holding a herald's wand.

"The Tau'ri means to rock our faith but the Lords of Kobol are stronger than anything, Hermes remains standing and he is a sign that in time we will send a message to the Tau'ri that we are the right and true way." Said the Sagittarian news anchor as Lee Adama flipped off the TV.

"Frak." cursed Lee as he and a few others sat behind a bar on Caprica.

"That about covers it," confirmed Karl

"What I find kind of funny is that they keep saying how Hermes is a sign of our victories in the future because it wasn't destroyed but he is standing in total destruction so couldn't it be said that he is a sign of what awaits us if we keep fighting." said Sharon with a shake of her head. "The power the Tau'ri have is something that not even I didn't think possible."

"That is for sure." Said Karl as suddenly the sound of yelling voices outside caused all three of them to look out of the front window of the bar. A massive crowd was marching past yelling for revenge against the Tau'ri. A man dressed in the flown robes of a Priest and with a golden chain around his neck which marked him as belonging to the order of Zeus stepped into the bar.

"Attention brothers and sisters of the Lords of Kobol!" he proclaimed the Priest as he raised the holy scrolls over his head. "Our evil twisted cousins have to be brought to heel and the only way to do that is joining to bring them down, with the power of our faith and the strength of our weapons we will be victorious! Join us and sign up to fight to reclaim Kobol and reunite the 13 tribes of man."

"Have you seen that! They turned us into the 11 tribes of Kobol," yelled a man on the other side of the bar as he pointed toward the TV screens, which lined the bar. "Have you seen what they can do, I say you're a fraked in the head if you think you can win against that. We took down one ship one!"

"Your faith has been shaken all ours have, but remember that the Lords of Kobol are with us and with them behind us we will win," stated the Priest before pointed toward the three colonial officers, none of them where in uniform at the time. "You three and everyone else come with us to join the armed forces to fight."

"Already ahead of you." Said Karl as he held up his military ID "But you have to be a fool not to see that peace talks is the only way, the Tau'ri don't want this war and we don't want it either."

"But we do!" yelled another voice from the bar, a woman's. Slowly she stood up "I will fight for the 13 tribes of Kobol, I will die if I have to and if I do I will stand before the Lords of Kobol in honor."

"You shall!" yelled the Priest "Who else will come with me, who else will fight, fight to for vengeance, to reunite the tribes of man under the Lords of Kobol and who will fight to have their souls cleared of all sins. The head of the Order of Zeus speaker for the Zeus among his people have declared like all the other high priests and priestess that those who fight and die in this battle will have all their sins removed. Now who will come with me!"

To the three colonial officer's amazement, almost half of the bar left and followed the priest out the door.

"Damn if this is what it is like on Caprica what is Sagittaron of Gememon like?" inquired Karl

**The same images that were being shown on colonial news was being hijacked and used by the multiple Tau'ri news media**. Images of the destruction were seen not as a strictly horrible view but in a more positive light. Some of the more horrifying images of badly injured children being pulled from the remains of Heim was shown but the pundits always related it back to the attack on Celin by the colonials. Since Heim was a mostly underground city it was a strong possibility that a large percentage of the population was likely alive and Heim hit had been a glancing blow by the likely accident of a deposit of Naquadah going off with the bomb. The images of the destroyed battlestars and dragon fire burning through fields growing with every minute was welcomed across Earth and Valhalla.

One of those places where it was welcomed was a small town located to the South of Celin on Valhalla, Paiania. The mostly Greek and Italian town was celebrating the great victory as a refugee from the 12 colonies of Kobol, who's father was now the vice president of their enemies Aegueus Spiros moved down the cobblestone streets toward the small building off the town square where his followers who had been saved by the Tau'ri had been given. It was not much of a building only a single floor with a parking lot to one side and a median sized yard. The downy oak tree growing from it was one not native to any of the worlds of the 12 tribes not even Valhalla, it had been brought from Earth. Overall the building was simple but the simple fact that they could hang a sign up saying it was a church to a single God not the Lords of Kobol was enough for them.

"How are things going?" inquired Aegueus to an old time follower and friend.

"Well the painting is done and we working on setting up the benches." He reported as the church bells began to ring down the road from them. "I must admit Aegueus I am worried."

"So am I, we may have turned our backs on the 12 colonies but we all have friends and family back there." admitted Aegueus as the man shook his head.

"No, I wasn't talking about that. I was talking about how long we can even remain a religious organization." Stated the man "Maybe you haven't heard but the Demos family has left to join that Eastern Orthodox church across town and another family the Papadakis are talking about joining the Roman Catholic church down over there. If this keeps up we will be eaten alive by the other faiths of the Tau'ri."

"This is true." admitted Aegueus "However I must admit I am not that upset about it, here at least we have a choice about what faith we belong to and no one is going to come after us for our beliefs."

"This is true, what do you think will happen in the colonies because of this bomb?" inquired the man

"It will scare most people beyond belief but there will be a load group yelling for vengeance and that will bring the larger group along a dangerous path." stated Aegueus

**All the humanoid Cylon models had gathered together and like everyone in the 12 colonies of Kobol they were looking at the level of destruction done by the Tau'ri.**

"They are capable of doing this?" inquired a six as she looked at the news broadcasts coming in from the 12 Colonies of Kobol.

"This is the worse level of destruction that has ever happened in the entire history of the 13 tribes of Kobol." reported the woman on the News.

"You know we could send them a message calling them the 11 tribes of Kobol." Said a three with a slight grin, all the other Cylons shared a small laugh at the little joke. "However that doesn't help us at the moment, the question is what will the next move in the war between the Tau'ri and the Colonials and what do we do to make sure we stay on top."

"I don't think we are on top." Said the One "We can't stand against the things that the Tau'ri are capable of but we are on their side. We are doing great by helping the Tau'ri from the shadows, I see no reason why we should change that."

"Neither do I, let the Tau'ri destroy the colonials." stated the eight before shaking her head. "Too many Colonials are blinded by their faith and will die instead of giving in and while it may not be as nice not to defeat them ourselves. Seeing the Colonials fall to the force of their cousins are something I will gladly see."

"Maybe we should send them a message saying we are willing to host a peace conference at the neutral space station they set up after the war." advised the Six as the others looked at her. "It will get us even more on the good side of the Tau'ri and what are the odds that they will allow us to host a peace conference."

"If we do that, then we should call them the 11 tribes of Kobol just to stick it to them," stated the One as all the humanoid Cylons laughed.

**The Quorum of the 13 tribes of Kobol as they had come to call themselves had to meet in the a conference center which sat across from the Atlas Pyramid stadium.** The Quorum had been in session in what was normally used as a large lecture hall where companies came to show off their newest items to investors when word came down of the attack. Instantly the place erupted in anger as the members from each colony rushed to be the first to damn the Tau'ri for their attack. In the end, it was the members form Aquaria who were given the chance to condemn the Tau'ri first. They had a thousand members in the quorum even though worlds with multiple times the population had the same number, while not every one of them did speak the senior members did.

"This ungodsless attack on our world must be answered as swiftly as possible." Said the senior member from Aquaria "The attack on the world with a nuclear weapons is un acceptable, the people of Earth should be ashamed of themselves and what they did. They have unleashed nuclear horror on a world gifted to humanity by the Lords of Kobol; they have turned it into a wasteland. They will pay for what they have done and we the people of Kobol will never give in to them. We will push forward to ultimate victory at any cost!"

With that the crowd of Quorum members cheered and clapped only a few of their numbers didn't take part. Slowly a member of the Quorum from Libran took the podium and gave a speech unlike any of her counterparts.

"This attack from the Tau'ri is indeed a defendable attack on us, but we all have to ask ourselves is the price we are paying for this war worth the cost." Started the woman "The Tau'ri have destroyed our vipers and raptors, engaged in terrorist attacks across the colonies and smashed everything we have sent at them. We must face the truth we are losing this war and for what? A planet that may or may not be Kobol? We are fighting as if we are sure their world Valhalla is Kobol we do not and even so is it worth all the lives that has been loss. I say no, we must accept the fact that our cousins are far more powerful than we are and the Cylons. We need to make peace."

"Peace!" yelled a Gemenon member as she pointed straight at her counterpart from Libran. "You talk of peace when the men and women in uniform are lying down their lives for our freedom. They know that it a noble sacrifice and that the Lords of Kobol will look after them in the next world and it is their duty to fight in this one. They fight for what it right and it is talk like that would make their sacrifice pointless it is up to us to make sure that we carry on to win this war. For the 13 tribes of Kobol we must have to coward to carry on until we win even at the cost of our lives."

The quorum exploded in cheers as someone put forward a motion to carry on the fight until final victory and pay for a doubling of the colonial fleet with 12 more Hercules class battlestars ordered.

**President Richard Adar leaned back in his chair with a stiff drink in his hand, gathered around him members of his cabinet and the highest military officials he could gather on short notice**. No one had said anything for a long time.

"The question is…" started the President "Is that can we stand a chance of winning this war?"

"Sir, we lost 72 ships 42 of them where battlestars. The media doesn't know that yet but in time they will." reported Admiral Nagata "In return we took down a single Tau'ri ship and a small one at that. We believe the that the Tau'ri have a small fleet when it comes to number, if it came down to a massive straight up battle with our entire fleet against theirs then computer simulations show that we would "win" 6 out of 10 battles."

"I am surprised I expected that we would break even at best." Admitted Admiral Adama

"The computer simulations put a tie as a victory on our side because we are on the defense." explained Admiral Nagata "And in those ties we force the Tau'ri back at the loss of 75% of our fleet and even in our victories we take almost 8 times the causalities of the Tau'ri. The only chance we could possibly have is if we refit our entire fleet and get our entire mothball ships into the fight, even then it is a long shot."

"And that is in a straight up fight, our cousins do not fight that way they fight underhanded and without honor." said a Marine General "We have reports of multiple terrorist attacks going on and even the reports of a monster eating people."

"A monster." laughed the President before going deep into his own fears. "I once thought I would go down in history as the President who brought the tribes of man together instead I will go down as maybe the worse president in the history of the colonies. The only two which could possibly be worse was the one who tried to become a dictator and was removed by the military and the fool who approved the production of the Cylons and their integration into the military."

"Sir, maybe we should consider starting peace talks with the Tau'ri." offered Admiral Adama as every member of the cabinet gathered their look at him. All of them had the same idea but didn't want to be the first to put that idea on the table. "The Tau'ri have no interested in taking us over, maybe we can come to terms."

"They destroyed a world," said Spiros then to the surprise of everyone he shook his head. "Maybe you are right, but we need Kobol back we have to have Kobol back. If we get it back I think I can sell the idea of letting the Tau'ri go on their own way but without Kobol it is not going to be possible to get the Quorum to agree to anything."

"There is no way they will give us one of their worlds. True if they do control 20% of the Galaxy then they can spare Kobol, it means nothing to them but why give it up for no reason?" countered Cain "We would need a victory to even get them to think of the idea."

"A victory that would be a miracle." stated Adar before taking a breath. "Maybe we can talk to them and get an understanding of the rules of war, so that we are all at least playing back the same rules."

"At worse we could come up with rules of war and come to an understanding about how this war should play out." advised Secretary of Education Laura Roslin.

"Maybe even get a prisoner exchange, we have one of their own in our custody." stated another member of the cabinet.

"The thing is under our law this Tau'ri is a terrorist not a solider, he tried to kill the President of the Colonies which under our laws Earth is." said the Secretary of Justice "He is a terrorist and the only way he can be released is if the Quorum signs off on a Presidential order. I wouldn't want the Quorum to find out about him because they could push for a public hearing and then sentence him and then there is nothing that can be done."

"If we get our people back and if it is part of a greater peace deal I am sure it can be arranged." stated President Adar as he took a breath and looked at the military and political advisors. "So we are agreed we will send a message to the Tau'ri that we want to talk about this event and possibly settle some of the issues that separate us."

"It will depend on how we sell this to the Quorum and the people but it can be done." Stated Spiros as they all nodded their heads as they settled on what they would do.

**The space around the captured colonial micro planet of Nysa was full of Eagle fighters; they had stopped here because unlike the Condor bombers they did not have the fuel to fly to the 12 colonies and back.** They had to stop here because they were low on fuel; they sat in space floating in formation waiting for space to land on either the captured base of Nysa, the Yorktown or the four Daedalus class cruisers. With so many Eagles waiting it would take some time. The rest of the fleet should arrive shortly and then the process would only take a few minutes because most of the Eagles would simply land and stay onboard.

"They need to come up with a drop pod for fuel." complained one of the pilots waiting for his turn.

"Why don't they?" inquired another

"Something to do with the naquadah fuel rods we use as fuel. The rods go right into the engines making an external fuel pod hard, but they are working on it I heard." explained a third pilot as some Eagles took off from the Yorktown and made a turn away from the gathering. His radio came alive as he got clearance to come in for a landing. He powered his Eagle in for a landing, he was lining up for approach on the second hanger when suddenly a flash of light to this right caught his eye. His head snapped toward the source only to see a giant colonial battlestar coming straight on at him. A second flash to the other side caused him to turn that way; another battlestar was coming straight at him from the other direction. He pulled his eagle out of landing approached just as two more flashes appeared one behind him and another in front of him. The Yorktown was now in the middle of four charging Battlestars.

Alarms where blaring onboard the Yorktown as the computers turned the shield power to max and the rail guns where brought into firing position and the Asgard beam weapons charged up. The battlestars had appeared less than 20 miles away from the starboard side of the Yorktown. In space 20 miles is nothing and the battlestars powerful engines began to push it forward at a full speed.

"Sir, they just appeared and I have only 9 life signs on each ship." Stated an officer as the Yorktown engines came alive and it began to move.

"They are heading straight toward us!" yelled another

"They are damn kamikazes!" yelled the highest ranking officer on the bridge as the rail guns opened up and the beam weapons prepared to fire but they never got a chance to open up as the massive almost 6,000 ft long battlestars slammed full speed into the side of the ship. They hit the ship at all sides almost at once two hit the side while another two hit directly in front and directly behind.

All four ships began to break apart as they slammed into the shield, even so the Yorktown rocked under the force as the crew rushed to battle stations. The shields where strained but held as the 6,000 ft long suicidal battlestars broke under them, then as one each battlestar exploded in massive nuclear fireballs as the stockpiles of nuclear weapons went off as one.

The force of the blasts sent the Yorktown spinning as the outer bubble like shields, which had held up to so much force broke and the strain from the blast tasked the inner skintight shield. That too began to break and the computer shifted power to protect key parts of the ship at the cost of others. The sides of the only carrier that the Tau'ri had ripped apart bring death to some of the crew within.

When the flash died the Yorktown was still there, it was badly damaged with massive holes in its side, part of one it's hangers had been blown off and the front part of the ship had been crumpled in. It appeared to be tilting in space when compared to the planet but it was still there.

More flashes of light appeared just outside where the Eagles had been waiting for land, multiple battlestars and other colonial ships had suddenly appeared in the space over Nysa. This force was the remains of the force, which had pulled back when the Tau'ri had taken the base; they had been joined by three more tasks groups and had carried out a daring attack on the Tau'ri.

The battlestars began to fire their anti-aircraft guns into where the Eagles where moments ago, most of the Eagles had powered away when the attack first began but somewhere caught in the massive fields of fire launched by the battlestars. Onboard the flagship of the attacking force, the battlestar Erebus the colonial commander was all smiles as he watched his operation go just as he planned. The Tau'ri main ship was down, he was surprised it was not broken in half or dusk but it was out of action and that left four smaller Tau'ri ships for him to deal with.

"Launch vipers, let's take back Nysa." ordered the Commander

Outside the Eagle fighters were doing what they could to reform and carry out attacks but most had no weapons aside from their rail guns and most where low on fuel. The Colonials had caught them flatfooted and they were making them pay. The Daedalus cruisers moved to engage the Colonials, firing Asgard beam weapons that cut through the colonial ships like hot knives through butter. Here again the colonials began to fire nuclear tipped shells which began to strike the shields of the Daedalus class ships at very high rate and there were a lot more Colonial ships then Tau'ri. For the first time in the war the Colonials had the upper hand and the they were forcing the Tau'ri back they were losing more than the Tau'ri but they were hurting them.

The space ripped open behind the colonials ships as Tau'ri ships began to spill out upon the sudden battle. For a moment, the newly arrived Tau'ri ships did not know what was happening then they began to open up on the Colonials. Seeing how they were now outnumbered they did the only thing they could, they ran. The remaining Colonial fleet started to recover their vipers but the Tau'ri ships where faster than them and soon the commanders on those ships decided the best move was to sacrifice a handful of pilots to save everyone else on the ship, when the last colonial ship jumped away there was still dozens of vipers in the air. The vipers tried to run but they did not get far.

"God damn it. Give me a life sign count," cursed Admiral Barker as the Britannia moved to alongside the crippled Yorktown. It took only a few moment but when the results came it was discovered that over three quarters of the crew 1,623 life signs on the ship where no longer there. "Can the Yorktown be saved?"

"Sir, we will have to see but I am not sure it is heavily damaged." Reported the officer as Admiral Barker eyes narrowed the Colonials had just knocked out if not destroyed the only carrier in the Tau'ri had. It had cost them four battlestars to do so and then it had cost them another eight. In total in the past few hours the Tau'ri had taken down 84 colonial warships and destroyed an entire world and it had cost them one ship and possibly one of the six capital ships that the Tau'ri had. The Colonials had thousands of battlestars to throw into the fire and the Tau'ri only had five large ships now with more being made. "Damn those religious nutcases Colonials."

**Well I hope you liked this chapter, I am leaving in a few hours for vacation and I will ****NOT**** update while I am gone so this will have to hold you over for a while. The Colonials finally get some damage done by slamming a couple of battlestars into a ship and blowing them and nuclear warheads off. So until next time please keep reading, Thanks Wilkins75.**


	53. Chapter 53

**Chapter 53 A chance**

President Adar of the 12 colonies of Kobol was thanking the Lords of Kobol that for once the vast distance that sat between the colonies and the outer rim of the area of space they controlled had worked in their favor. A task force of the Colonial fleet carried out an attack on Nysa before word of the bombing of Aquaria and the orders to pull back had reached them. They had carried out an attack on the Tau'ri controlled world of Nysa and had from all reports destroyed a Tau'ri capital ship and the Tau'ri had only a handful. This was a victory, a great victory that the was just what he needed to possibly make a peace deal with victory.

Once he got word of the victory he had released the image of the destroyed Tau'ri ship and it had been blasted across all the wireless channels, what he hadn't released was the number of battlestars had done suicidal runs on the single Tau'ri ship. They hadn't released the number of ships that had been destroyed and a large percentage had been battlestars. Battlestars formed the backbone of the colonial navy but there were other ships, cruisers, destroyers and transport ships, in fact the most common ship was the small Hoplite patrol ship but it didn't have much in the way of massive firepower. It was designed to be a patrol ship and with limited anti-fighter support. They had guns but their largest gun was the smallest gun on a battlestar, he still had a lot of them.

He turned his gaze down to the speech he was writing, he was going to offer a chance a slim chance for peace. He knew he was not going to get their cousins back in the fold but he had slim hopes that he could get Kobol. From everything they had seen in recon photos Kobol or Valhalla as the Tau'ri called it was thinly populated and was mostly a military world. The Tau'ri seem to have just started to colonize the planet and it would not be hard to stop and reverse it. They would of course give the Tau'ri time to pull out and if it saved millions of lives on both sides, he saw no reason why the Tau'ri would care about a single world when they control 20% of the galaxy.

"They can find another world, Kobol is holy to us and they want peace it is price that has to be paid." stated the President to himself.

**It was snowing outside as the first snowflakes began to fall on Washington, DC covering the capital city of the United States in a light dusting of snow.** The snow was not even deep enough to prevent grass from sticking through them. Winter had started to come earlier than normal thanks to all the Asgard technology removing greenhouse gasses which had caused warmer than normal winters in the recent past. Still the snow was coming earlier than expected since Thanksgiving was a week away. The people on the street where still celebrating the victory over the Colonials and the media was pushing the story about how much damage the bombing had done. Inside the White House, the President of the United States had different concerns on his mind.

"The Yorktown." grumbled the President of the United States as he leaned back in his chair in the oval office, in front of him stood two of the three highest ranking officers General O'Neill and General Carter. Technically O'Neill was the highest-ranking officer as commander of all Tau'ri forces and General Carter was the third as commander of the SGC. That was the official ranking but unofficially General Shepard who was commander Pegasus was the second highest officer but it was known that Carter would jump him to become Supreme Commander of the Tau'ri, General Shepard was happy in the Pegasus Galaxy.

"Yes, sir." Confirmed O'Neill "The Colonials did Kamakazie runs at the ship with 4 battlestars slamming into their shields at the same time and then detenting their nuclear warheads."

"The ship is savageable and is already being towed back to Valhalla to begin repairs." added General Carter as she stood beside her commanding officer and longtime friend.

"The Yorktown? How could this happen? Space is big and yet they rammed it with four ships?" inquired the President "Couldn't it have moved out of the way?"

"Sir…" said Carter as she looked at Jack.

"Sir, the Yorktown was sitting in orbit and was in all view sitting still," explained General O'Neill as the President looked at him. "It made landing the number of the Eagles we had to land easier."

"This was part of the plan?" inquired the President

"Yes, sir we had planned for the rest of the fleet we assigned to be there but the Eagle and Condor attack went off better than expected and they arrived ahead of schedule and they started landing the birds before the rest of the fleet arrived." explained Carter as the President shook his head.

"So because an operation went so well we have our only carrier crippled for how long?" inquired the President

"A couple of months at least sir." Confirmed Jack "The rest of the fleet should be arriving at Valhalla from the Pegasus galaxy within the next 3 to 5 hours, it will take some time for them to retool and rearm they rushed back here from their battle against the Wraith but they should be ready for deployment within 24 hours."

The President took a deep breath as he calmed himself over the damaged done to the Yorktown.

"How many Battlestars did we destroy?" inquired the President

"In total we have destroyed 84 colonial warships in the past few hours, I admit not sure what number of them are battlestars but I know over half of them are." explained O'Neill. "We estimate the casualties from their ship only losses to be around 126,000 military personal, that isn't counting fighter and bomber losses and the KIA on the ground. We lost under 2,000 people in total that includes the Eagle's that where shot down along with the KIA from the Yorktown and the Melbourne."

"I just don't understand why we haven't just beaten these colonials into the ground with ease." said the President as he turned slightly to look out the window.

"Sir, you have to remember our fleet compared to theirs is small very small." stressed Carter "They have thousands of ships, most of them are small patrol ships and a lot of the bigger ones date back 40 plus years but they still fire nuclear shells with a rate of fire almost equal to our railguns. They have more ships firing more shells."

"Their nuclear shells are weak but if they are fired so fast that the blows add up into something that can do damage to our shields." explained O'Neill. "Kind of like how a single rain drop hitting an umbrella will do nothing to it but if hundreds of thousands of the same raindrops hit the same umbrella it will break under the force."

"I see but our ships can cut through them with ease." countered the President "We have all this technology."

"Technology that we still doesn't fully understand," explained General O'Neill "The Asgard dumped their entire history and all their technology onto our laps and we are still trying to piece together the Ancient technology as best we can. We do not fully understand it all, it would like putting a WW1 biplane pilot behind the controls of an Eagle fighter. They may understand some of it but not everything."

"Add to that we are trying to integrate multiple nations with multiple military personal and styles into a single system. The colonials have already done that, we are in the process," explained General Carter "We are in the process of issuing the same uniforms to everyone."

"Sir, getting everyone to either agree to take up waffenfarbe on the new uniforms and what colors was took three months of one and off debating." stated Jack as the president raised an eyebrow, he had no idea what the General was talking about.

"Waffenfarbe are colored patches worn on the collars of uniforms to tell at a glance what a persons job is." explained Jack "Also it says what color your shoulder marks are on the dress uniform. It is used my some nations in Europe like Germany, Finland and others. They want it on the new uniforms and we are honoring it because it will make ID personal jobs easier and it brings in a tradition from that part of the world. "

"You have got to be kidding me your debating this?" inquired the President

"Sir, the military is just as political as civilian governments and we are trying to merge the militaries of some many nations, you have seen how hard it is to get everything in order politically together on the civilian side." Explained Jack "We have the same issue, it isn't like you can merge so many militaries together fast. We had this planned out over 5 to 6 years and we are trying to do it as fast as possible while fighting a war and growing the number of people in the military."

"So they have more ships then us, they have a better integrated military and command system." stated the President "If we had more time we could overrun them with ease."

"Yes, sir." confirmed General O'Neill "Add to that they are religious nutcases who believe if they die they got to heaven."

"So all we need is a pause button to freeze the Colonials while we build ships and get everything else done." said the President with the shake of his head.

"Sir, that may be an option." Said Carter as the President looked at her. "Sir, we have all but frozen time before in a time dilation field which speeds up or slowdowns time in the effective area."

"You can do this to an area the size of the 12 colonies of Kobol?" inquired the President

"Sir, I have been looking into the possibility and if we use some of the technology that the Ori used to power their supper gate. It may be possible to power it, then we may be able to slow down time within colonial space to a ratio of…."

"Carter just give us a general number." Ordered O'Neill

"Sir, if my math is right then we could slow down time within Colonial space so that a month to them would be just over a year to us." Explained Carter "The area we have to cover is just too large for us to cover any better."

"So you can buy us years of time with this?" inquired the President as Carter nodded. "Why wasn't this an option in the first place?"

"Sir, no one thought it would go this far and to make it work we will have to power it with a black hole which means using one of our black hole bombs on a target large enough to sustain a black hole." explained Carter. She knew that for safety reason the black hole bombs they had which was small mini black holes contained in time dilation fields to slow down their life span and kept them from growing too large didn't have the mass to sustain themselves without being close to a large amount of mater. Drop it in space and it would die out in a few minutes because it would not have enough matter to support itself but drop it in a star and you got a very large boom. "That would mean moving some very large asteroids maybe even a small planet into the right position. It can be done but until now no one had even thought it was needed."

"Well it may be needed now, I want teams looking into this." ordered the President as Carter nodded. "General if this works how long can you keep the black hole going?"

"Depending on how much material we move near the location before we set it off forever but I would estimate that we could keep it going for between 3 and 4 months within colonial space." Explained Carter

"That would give us 3 to 4 years to prepare for war, building ships, training men and integrate everything we have to do." said O'Neill with a smile.

"More like 4 to 5, like I said each month for them is just over a year for us." explained Carter as a knock at the door caused all three to turn toward the door, it opened as an aid walked in past the two secret service officers who stood by the door in their black suits.

"Mr. President." said the Secretary of State as she walked in before noticing the two generals standing in front of the desk. "Generals."

"Madam Secretary." said General O'Neill as Carter nodded her head.

"Mr. President, we have intelligence coming from Valhalla, that the Colonial President is going to make a speech in an hour or two to offer us peace terms." explained the Secretary of State

"So maybe our nuclear strike has had some good, I was amazed that they didn't fold up after the bombing." Added O'Neill

"Well they think we have their holy world of Kobol, remember all the problems we have had between Israel and Palestine." added Carter before pausing for a moment. "Problems that we are still having."

"That is the thing, from the leaked news it seems that one of their conditions for ending the war will be that we hand over Valhalla." Reported the Secretary as everyone looked at her as if she was stupid, they knew she was just giving them a message but they could not help it.

"They think that we would give up Valhalla?" stated the President

"They seem to think that if they allow us to leave in return for giving them Valhalla that we would take it." explained the Secretary of State "That being said it may be worth it, they want to talk about smaller issues such as treatment of POW and rules of engagement."

"Sir, we don't know if they have one of the Russian Spetsnaz as a POW or if he is KIA." Reported Carter

"Even if he is KIA we would want the body along of those other spetsnaz who died. We can give them the dead we have of theirs in return." advised O'Neill "We have several thousand POW of the Colonials from their attack on Valhalla."

"Talking never hurts, depending on their conditions I see no problem in holding talks," confirmed the President

**On the fields of Valhalla, Major Jager moved away from his Leopard III tank toward the Colonial Pallas tank.** It was clear that the Pallas was a heavy tank, very heavy in fact and it became even clearer as he got closer. The intelligence book said that the average armor thickness was 13 inches which was about the average thickness of the Panthers front armor but that was how thick the armor on the Pallas was at the rear where it is generally thinner. The thickness of the armor to the front was almost 17 inches with additional placement points for attachable armor for a grand total of 24 inches of armor in the front. Side curtains protected the tracks and even the back, overall it was by far the most armored tank Jager had ever seen even in museum pieces. He moved to where top members from intelligence was looking over a manual that had been found in the tank.

"Sir." Said one of them as Jager walked up. "What can I do for you today?"

"Tell me about this damn thing," ordered Jager "I know it is slow and heavy but what else?"

"Well sir, it uses an auto loader because it fires a massive shell," stated the intelligence "Is model fires a 203 mm gun and that seems to be the common gun size"

Jager's eyes, a 203 mm shell would weigh 146 kg, a 280 mm shell would belong on a battleship a gun of that size would be horrible on a moving tank. The 152 mm of his Leopard was large enough to do the job and as they gave him more numbers it became clear that the colonials where going for size for some reason. The colonials for going for size was missing speed and while their Pallas tank fired a much larger shell then the leopard it had a lower muzzle speed and that made up for the size in the Leopard's smaller round.

"Another example the colonials go for size while we go for speed." Stated Jager

"They also don't use sabot rounds for armor pricing or fin stabilized rounds so we will outrange them." Stated the officer as Jager blinked, Sabot rounds, which had been used since just after ww2.

"Damn they are really behind the times," stated Jager as he wondered what else they would discover when they got these tanks and other weapons back to the base.

Elsewhere on Vahalla an honor guard from each member of the Tau'ri had formed up outside the Stargate. Each group was only about ten members each but the two largest groups where members of the Chinese and Indiani Army. Standing outside the stargate stood General Rag-Sigh in his full indian army, he lowered his head a bit. He had knew that this day was a long time coming but he still didn't like it. The Stargate activated causing him to look up, seconds after the blue vortex settled two figures walked out. One was a slightly taller than average Chinese woman with black hair under her cap and even darker eyes set in a face that looked innocent. Even so the metals and ribbens on her chest told everyone she was not a person to mess with. Beside her was a white man in a colonel's uniform with a his deep blue eyes looking out at the area around him.

"General Leiong Leang." Greeted General Raj-Sing to the Tigress of the Chinese Army, she had been the first woman to become the head of the PLA and she had demonstrated her skills in the field with operations against terrorist groups attacking UN food convoys in Africa.

"General Raj-Sing." greeted the Tigress in a cool voice. "You know I do not take this post from you as Commander of Valhalla with any pleasure but with the attack by the Colonials it was decided that a change was needed even if you done nothing wrong."

"I understand, General." confirmed General Raj-Sing as he looked at the man standing beside the Tigress of China.

"Allow me to introduce my personal aid, Colonel Lee from the Royal Canadian Air Force." introduced General Leiong Leang. General Raj-Sing nodded his head and thought about why General Leiong Leang was picked to take command at Valhalla.

First, she was Chinese and it was safe to assume that the Chinese government wanted a high-ranking officer in command of Valhalla, that was true of every nation beside the United States who had the top three highest officers in the Tau'ri military. Even so, she was very skilled in large-scale operations with multi-national forces and had worked with other nations militaries in those operations. She was cold, calculating and very dangerous to anyone who got in her way. The only issue was she was an army woman and knew war from the ground not the sky that told him the answer. She was there because if they had to, she would be the one in charge of a ground invasion of a colonial world and as far as he knew no one was better than the Tigress when it came to that.

**President Richard Adar came toward the podium with Admiral Nagata and Vice President Spiros flanking him on either side.** He stood in what had been the ballroom of a hotel; behind him were the flags of each of the colonies of Kobol along with the flag of the Colonial Government. The Flag of Aquaria was put forward the most with black stands hanging from each flag as a sign of mooring. The hotel staff along with those standing there had been used to fill in the room to make it appear full. Multiple cameras had been set up and just in case the Tau'ri traced the broadcast, they had two armored SUV teams ready to head in different directions plus three teams of three vipers who would fly in opposite ways. It was all to confuse any Tau'ri who might be watching.

He took a drink of water and after making sure everything was ready, he nodded toward the head camera operator. He held up his hand and five fingers and slowly counted down until he pointed toward the President. With that, the light on the camera turned from red to blue a sign that he was now broadcasting live across all colonial space. The colonial intelligence knew that the Tau'ri where monitoring their wireless broadcasts.

"People of the 12 colonies of Kobol, we have all seen the images coming out of Aquaria and other worlds across our space. War has reached every world in some way or another, bridges destroyed, terrorist attacks done by Tau'ri forces they have even tried to assassinate the elected officials of the government. In fact the first act of their war was to destroy the Quorum building with no warning." Started the President "We have hit back; we have hit them back destroying what we believe to be one of six battlestars size ship they have. We have demonstrate that we can hurt each other. The Lords of Kobol do not want the blood of their children any of their children. Therefor in order to bring peace or at least reach agreements to make this conflict more respectable and possible work out deals for prisoners on both sides."

"We want to work out this out so that we can work together and form a peace that all the tribes of man can enjoy." explained the President "If the people of the Tau'ri accept this I hold that we hold a meeting on Libran in the Grand Hall of justice in 3 days. I personally along with a small group will meet with whoever the Tau'ri wish to send, they will have free passage and any ship they send will not be fired upon along as long as they don't fire first."

"We must all try to give peace a chance before the tribes of Kobol destroy each other and that will only benefit the true enemies of humanity, the inhuman cylons." Stated the President "May the Lords of Kobol protect and guild us all toward a brighter tomorrow."

The president waved the crowd as they cheered and clapped but not as much or as loudly as the President hoped, they would.

**A couple of hours later the space around the edge of the home system of Valhalla was ripped open with a massive line of bluish vortex, each vortex was so close together that they merged together into a single large vortex.** Out of those vortexes came first small Galahad class destroyers followed by Daedalus class cruisers. Next came the three battleships which had journeyed to the Pegasus front, the US battleship Missouri, the Russian Battleship Kursk and the Chinese Battleship Long Chun or Spring Dragon. After them came the large Hadrian class transports which carried the condor bombers and Eagle fighters that had not fit onto the other ships.

They powered toward Valhalla where the rest of the fleet minus those not assigned to defend Earth was located. They moved past the Yorktown, which was still in space waiting for engineers to study the damage done to the ship. They did not want to start the decent of the Yorktown into the atmosphere only to have it break apart and have large pieces of metal fall on the civilians of Valhalla.

The ships moved past the Yorktown and formed up to begin the process of rearming the ships to fight the Colonials. They had not gotten a chance to resupply at Atlantis like they had planned so they now had to fill their armories with all the weapons they would need to take on the Colonials. The crew had been informed about the colonial ships and their weapons and the pilots had been practicing fights against Colonial Vipers in the simulators.

They all knew that it would take just over a day to prepare the fleet, even with beaming technology it could not be done an instantly. It would also take time to decide where would be the best place to deploy the fleet. The best news was that the Odyssey the only ship in the Tau'ri fleet with an ancient cloaking technology that is not a jumper had arrived. The other stealth ships mostly the still being repaired Akula had similar cloaking as Goa'uld which replaced the shield with the cloak. The ancients had similar technology only while the shield was totally down with the Goa'uld technology the ancient ones still had a slight shield. Not much but it would be enough to provide limited protection to the ship and would have likely saved the ship from the same fate as the Akula when a Raptor jumped into it.

News of the fleets arrive reached Earth within a couple of minutes thanks to the network of broadcasting stations which crossed the lightyears with only a few seconds of delay for military channels and a few minutes for civilian broadcasts.

"So we now have the forces needed to strike the Colonials hard," stated the Russian President as the leaders of the Tau'ri gathered together in the Oval Office.

"On the other hand we also have this peace conference offer by the Colonials?" stated the French President "They do show how central focus they are believing that we are part of their tribes of Kobol but we have all dealt with people like that before."

"Most of all when you live right next to one." added the South Korean President who along with other high ranking members of the governmental body of the Tau'ri joined the big 8 along in the Oval office "Even so this isn't North Korea we are dealing with but a group of worlds which may yet be reasoned with."

"Agreed and they say treatment of prisoners on both sides, this proves that they have the MIA Spetsnez." stated the Russian President "We should get him back using the Odyssey."

"We can save that for a backup, we can work out a deal to get him we have almost 5,000 of them as POWs." stated the British PM "Why show them that we have beaming technology behind the scene when we can use it to better effect. I recommend instead that we release the list of names we have as POW to the colonial government and their press."

"Agreed but we should give their government a bit of a warning about what we are going to release so that they can contact family members." stated the American President. "This meeting I believe it is safe to say we are going to give this a chance, just so that we can clear up any issues and settle this war down into something at avoids nuking civilians."

All the world leaders nodded their heads in agreement as the message was sent out to the Colonials that they would meet with them in three days.

**It didn't take long for news of the Tau'ri decision to attend the conference reached the Colonial government but even with that news Adar found himself facing an issue he hadn't thought of. **

"Sir, the Tau'ri have agreed to the conference but they have requested us to clear something up for them, does this peace conference mean a ceasefire between all Tau'ri and Colonial space and ground forces." Stated an aid

"Yes, of course it does." answered Adar before he noticed that his Sectary of Justice shaking his head. "What is it?"

"Sir, the Tau'ri forces which are on the ground like the one we have as a prisoner are considered terrorists. If we agree to a ceasefire with them then legally we are agreeing to ceasefire with terrorists and the Quorum can remove you." explained one of the best legal minds in the colonies. "You can agree to a limited ceasefire, other Presidents have done that in the past when dealing with terrorist groups but it is limited to the city that the talks happen nothing more."

"That will not work, they have to come on a ship and we can't limit it to a single city," countered Adar before thinking about issues. "What if I use the fact that they have to get here in a ship as a reason to have a ceasefire on and above Libran?"

"That could work and it would be easier for the Quorum to accept that." stated the Sectary of Justice as Adar nodded his head before going back to figuring out what issues they wanted to bring up first and the counterpoints they would use against the Tau'ri. They quickly agreed on the terms that they would sent to the Tau'ri for the meeting, there would be five representative from each side plus four guards. Each side would also be allowed to send two news camera crews to broadcast the meeting to each side. Adar himself didn't like that but his political advisors convinced him that if they held this meeting without broadcasting it live to the people there would be talk that they are hiding something and that would cause massive problems with the public.

**Well I am back from my vacation and besides being driven up the wall by my young nephews, it was enjoyable time in Florida but I have returned. Now I hope you enjoyed this chapter and until next time please keep reading, Thanks Wilkins**


	54. Chapter 54

**Important note**

Before you all start reading the next chapter I have a slight announcement, I am going to do something I have never done before. Two of my coworkers whom I bounce stories ideas off have come up with two stories they want me to do. Now I tend to get a PM from a different person every week with a story idea that they want me to do. Generally refuse to take other people's stories because I want them to do it but I liked these ideas a lot. Since I am considering breaking this self-imposed rule, I decided to open the floor to multiple ideas. Now before anyone with ideas for stories they would want me to write rush to send me a message I do have some rules.

Any ideas must be sent in a PM not a review.

One story idea per person, you can be as detailed or as general of an idea as you want.

Crossovers are welcomed but I put a limit of two things being crossed over.

If you want one of my other stories rewritten send that in a PM and it will be considered as well.

If I don't know the show, book, cartoon, anime or anything else the idea will likely be rejected, sorry but it is hard to write about something I don't know.

Ideas will be accepted until the end of October 2016.

Early November 2016 I will pick 5 to 10 story ideas that I like and post them up in a poll so everyone can vote to see what they want. However I will have the final say and any winning story will not likely be started until 2017.

I hope you all understand what I am trying to say, now enjoy the chapter.

**Chapter 54 In a Letter**

President Richard Adar sat down in front of a news reporter in the Presidential suit of a hotel, the curtains where drawn so that no one could use the skyline through the window to spot where the President was staying. He took one last drink before turning to the reporter.

"Are we ready?" inquired Adar, that was code to the reporter that it was time to get this show on the road.

"Yes, Mr. President." said the reporter as he turned toward the camera, which was over Adar's shoulder and began to speak to it. Another camera was over the reporters shoulder so that each one of them had a camera on their face, it would be up to the producer to determine who was shown when. Either way the cameras where in just the right position to get the shot but not in the shot of the other camera.

"Mr. President you announced that you will hold a peace conference with our rebellious cousins from Earth, do you think this is a wise move?" inquired the reporter.

"Mike, we have to try to make peace we have all seen the destruction caused by the bombing of Aquaria. We have damaged the Tau'ri with the destruction of some of their ships and both sides know that the other side can hurt them." explained Adar "Why waste human blood in a pointless war when we can come together and work out our differences?"

"The people of Aquaria and the people dealing with the strange green fires on Aerilon would disagree." stated Mike "How are we coming in dealing with those fires, they are spreading and reports are already coming in that prices for basic food such as bread will go up because of the destroyed harvest?"

"That is a major concern for us and we have found a way to put the fire out, however that method requires putting salt on the fire and is almost as bad when it comes to destroying the field." Explained Adar, he didn't say that reports where that while their wouldn't be starvation in the colonies the destruction would cause food prices to rise by between 150 and 200%. "We are currently attempting to contain the fires by burning areas around the fire and containing the fire until they burn out."

"Well let's hope that works," stated the reporter "Now who is all going to attend this peace conference?"

"We had multiple people who would have done a great job in this meeting however we have narrowed it down to four people who will help me make peace." explained Adar "For military advice Admiral Adama who has severed the colonial people for most of his life and Secretary of Defense Helena Cain will advised me on military issues."

Adar smiled even if while he trusted Adama he had no real faith in Cain, however she was a favorite of the hardliners in the Quorum and he would need her and Vice President Spiro help to settle any peace deal.

"For helping me understand the needs of the faith, Priest Spiro head of the holy order of Zeus will advise me." explained Adar as he smiled at the surprise look on the reporter face. Priest Spiro who was the elder brother to the vice president was the head of the Holy Order of Zeus that order was the largest single religious order in the colonies and was respected in every other one. "Lastly to advise me on legal issues Judge Varvara Delis who is the elder judge of the Supreme court of the Colonies will play both hostess and advisor."

"A very well rounded group of advisors Mr. President, do we know who our cousin's are sending to this conference?" inquired the reporter as Adar shook his head. "Since they haven't done that can we trust them?"

"Trust is a two way street and they have expressed multiple concerns over us." explained Adar "They have even sent inquiries about moving the location to a different location because of worries that we would betray them."

"Like we would do that." Said the Reporter as Adar put on a false smile, the public didn't know about the last attempt by the Tau'ri to make peace and how the vice president had pulled a knife on the alien.

"All true but they remember how we held one of their officers Colonel O'Neill and while it followed the ruling of the court it concerns them. They offered to hold the conference on the Cylon space station but with the Cylon fleet sitting right there on their side of space we can't risk sending a delegation to that location and they wouldn't allow us to travel to Kobol."

"Why not?" inquired the reporter

"They don't want us to spy on them." answered Adar "That left Libran as the only option however the Tau'ri have shared some worrisome warnings. They have informed us that anything that happens to their delegation will be answered with a nuclear strike or strikes on Libran."

"That is indeed concerning considering all the horrible things that they have done with their terrorist attacks on the people," stated the reporter

"I do have good news we have already reached a deal with the Tau'ri." Said Adar as the reporter looked at the president. "We have agreed to a prisoner exchange for the Tau'ri terrorist we have in custody. We will be giving them their man back and in return we will get 24 of the POW they hold two from each world."

"That is good news Mr. President do we know who will be released?" inquired the reporter

"Yes and no, the Tau'ri didn't want us to pick whoever we wanted from the POWs they have so instead they will pick two randomly and we will pick two from each world. Then the four POW will draw lots to decide who goes home." Explained Adar, drawing lots has been an accepted way to settle issues for decades. Even the Lords of Kobol drew lots to decide who would rule what after the defeat of the Titans, Zeus drew the short lot and became ruler of heaven while Hades drew the long lot and became the ruler of the underworld. This was accepted even by the Lords because it was in the hands of the fates and even the Lords of Kobol had no power over them. "On a lesser note we have also agreed on an exchange of the dead from both sides, so that families can have their loved ones returned. I will be putting this before the Quorum in a few hours and hopefully they accept it before the start of the conference with these small issues aside we can work on the larger issues."

"Such as getting Kobol back and united the tribes of men?" inquired reporter

"I think we need to be honest that we will have to wait for our cousins to return to the faith on their own however on the Kobol issue much can be done." explained Adar "They claim to have control over 20% of the galaxy they don't need Kobol. What is one world compared to the peace that can be made. We will of course make arrangements to allow the people who have already settled and the cities they have built to be removed but we are willing to make that deal. We may not get Kobol right away but we will have it, hopefully in a peaceful way."

**On a distance planet Colonel Jack O'Neill walked down the hallway of his new assigned base, beside him walked the third highest ranking officer in the Tau'ri military, his old friend General Samantha Carter.** The soldiers and other personal in the corridor snapped to attention as they walked past but Carter didn't return the salute, instead a simple nod was enough for most. The multiple scientist and engineers who saw the two of them also watched them pass.

"So you think you can trap the Colonials in a time dilation field?" inquired Jack "Wouldn't the power needs be over the top?"

"Yes, but we have been studying how the ORI got the power for their supergate from a black hole and we have done it on a small scale already in lab tests." explained Carter as Jack nodded his head. Both of them knew that they were looking into generating power on that scale to build a Supergate in Pegasus, that way ships wouldn't have to travel the void between galaxies.

"Alright but why not trap Valhalla in a time field, that could allow us to build a fleet in seconds because years could pass for people in the field," advised O'Neill

"And all those millions people have families, we can't ask them to be separated for years and that goes for all our outposts across the entire galaxy and Atlantis." explained Carter with a shake of her head. "That will not work."

"I guess that makes sense." admitted Jack "I wouldn't want to be separated from my family for years, the thing is wouldn't this plan of yours do the same thing to the POWs?"

"That is a major down side but they are POWs, we can think of something to do with them." admitted Carter "The befits of doing this outweigh the costs."

"I guess, POWs in wars have spent years imprisoned in the past." confirmed Jack "Maybe we could put them into a time dilation field which matches their families back home."

"That is a possibly." Admitted Carter "One I hadn't thought of."

"But that would just make the task of making a machine capable of doing the whole time dilation field harder because you will have to do two." stated Jack as Carter shook her head.

"Actually the design the Asgard used against in their war will be enough to do the job. They did design it to effect a smaller area but with a much greater slowdown in time, so that seconds inside are hundreds of years outside. What we are doing is making the effective area larger but not slowing down time as much," explained Carter. "It should work in theory but I need to check my math."

"Well your math is normally good," confirmed Jack as they walked past four guards standing in front of a door. Each of the figures where in full body armor with weapons ready if needed. Everyone knew that it was not needed but they were standing in front of the room where the two ZPMs that they were studying in hopes of finding out how to make more where being studied. They had replaced the 12 nearly full power ZPMs that the Colonials had with fakes and now those ZPMs where being split up across multiple galaxies. Personally Jack would have put the other ten on their battleships and used them to blast the colonials but it wasn't his call, the powers that be didn't want to risk them being destroyed by putting them on a warship.

Of the ten others, four of them where going to Earth and possibly Mars and Venus when they got fully terraformed. Another two were going to Valhalla and another one was likely going to Langara if the home world of Jonas Quinn voted to join the Tau'ri alliance. Atlantis did not have need of any of the ZPMs because they had kept all three that Todd had given them when they brought down the super hive ship. That accounted for 9 out of the 12, the other three where being kept in storage to be used on future projects.

"We should use those ZPMs to crush the Colonials," stated Jack outload to his old friend.

"I pushed for that and so did General O'Neill, but they want to start building city ships in a decade or two and they need the ZPMs for them," explained Carter before laughing. "They are even considering making a city ship and using it as a Capital city for the Tau'ri on Earth and then fly it to off the coast of whatever nation currently holds the office of the president."

"All these big projects going at the same time, I don't think that is wise." Admitted Jack before shaking his head. "I take that back, we had multiple projects going on in WW2 and we got a lot done in those years."

The crack of bullets and the deafing roar of explosions filled the air of a normally peace mountain meadow on Sagittaron. A squad of twelve colonial soldiers where in the fight of their lives, too bad they were fighting shadows. Dark figures appeared from behind trees only to disappear into mist as bullets hit them. Moments after that would happen another shadow or two would appear behind a different tree and the process would go on.

"Kept the fire going!" yelled the young squad leader as he fired at a shadow, which came close to him. The twelve man where firing as fast as they could and the shell casings from their weapons where covering the ground.

Behind the group watching the entire battle from a safe distance sat Todd, he chuckled to himself as the mental shadows which all Wraith could send out to herd humans into a single spot for feeding was just as effective in this galaxy as back in the Pegasus. He took a drink of wine and waited as the Colonials kept firing away at nothing, all the while recording it. He had no idea why the Tau'ri wanted the video but considering the video camera did not pick up the shadows it was kind of funny to see these soldiers freak out over nothing because.

Finally Todd was getting board as he placed his wine glass down and stood up. He stretched a bit before pulling his pistol from his hostler. It was time to eat and now that the Colonials had used up almost all their ammo fighting nothing and were at their mental breaking point, they would be easy to capture for food.

**Space ripped open as a single vortex opened up just outside the orbit of Pluto, out of that vortex came the HMS Ark Royal.** The crew was more than happy to be back home on Earth even if it would take slightly longer then they would like to reach Earth itself. Due to worries about ships coming out of hyperspace around Earth and attacking, all ships had to exit hyperspace around Pluto and journey under sub light engines toward Earth and ship that did not would find themselves locked on if not fired upon the moment they came out by the ships and defense satellites. That was not always the case in the past but that was in the past, another issue was that in time Earth would become a major traffic point for ships and they didn't want ships hitting each other as came in toward the inner system.

With powerful sub light engines it didn't take long for the Ark Royal to move into the system, it passed by multiple large defense satellites each one of them capable of cutting a Wraith Hive Ship or even an Ori mother ship in half with a single strike. Earth was the most heavily defended place in the known Galaxy. The only two that came close being Valhalla, which had fallen victim to an attack because Colonial FTL didn't work like any other races and the joint defense line set up by all the Free Jaffa, Lucian Alliance and the Tau'ri around the ORI Supergate to make sure nothing came in that way.

Lt. Rose Ryan looked out the window from the gallery as planets she never thought she would see as a child in person with her own eyes passed by. There was Jupiter and its red dot now with the addition of a defense satellite in orbit with all its moon. As they passed through the asteroid belt, she saw something she had not expected to see, Mars. The planet was not a surprise but the fact that the red planet was not very red anymore, patches of green could be seen on the planet even some blue could be seen.

"What the hell?" inquired Lt. Ryan "What is going on with Mars?"

"I am not surprised you didn't know with the war and Valhalla they haven't focused much on what they are doing back here." laughed a nearby sailor "They are using Asgard Terraforming to make Mars habitual, something to do with special fungus to make an atmosphere and melting the ice to bring following water to the surface."

"Why terraform Mars?" inquired Lt. Ryan "We have the Stargate and countless habitual worlds why mess with turning Mars habitual?"

"And Venus." added the Sailor as the American pilot looked at the British sailor "They are terraforming both of them but that doesn't answer your main question does it?"

"No." growled Lt. Ryan

"Well I would have to guess it is because even with the Stargate people still want to be near Earth, near everything they had ever known. With the Stargate you could walk from Vahalla to Earth but from Mars or Venus you can see Earth in the sky every night." explained the Sailor as Lt. Ryan nodded her head conceding the point. "Also it is something people have wanted to do for a very long time to Mars more than Venus and now with Asgard and Ancient technology we can have three worlds right here in the system. On a more practical side both planets have resources that aren't on Earth."

"I see." confirmed Lt. Ryan as suddenly the load speaker began to calling her name and ordering her to get to her fighter bomber. It did not take long for her to reach the flight ready room and to change to leave, once that was done she walked into the hanger to see that the doors where open and she could see Earth partly hidden by the moon on one side. She could see North America, her home for the most part cloud cover prevented her from seeing her native Texas well.

"Lt. Ryan, thank you for everything you have done here." Said Captain Taylor as both of them shook the other hands.

"Permission to leave the ship?" inquired the US navy pilot to the Royal Navy Captain.

"Permission granted." Confirmed Taylor as Lt. Ryan got into the Taita fighter bomber. Within a couple of moments she flew off the Ark Royal and into the void of space, four Eagle fighters waited for her and formed up around her two on each side so that they made a V with her on point.

The flew past the moon and that is when she saw something else she hadn't seen the last time she was on Earth. There over the Pacific ocean something was being constructed, it didn't look like a ship but instead looked like a larger version a defense station only it lacked the long main ancient beam cannon and was rounded in the center. It was see through like a building that only had the wood or metal frames up but it was clearly to be enclosed.

"What the hell is that?" inquired Lt. Ryan

"What…that?" inquired a pilot on the radio as the fellow pilot gave the radar location of the structure.

"Yes." confirmed Lt. Ryan

"That is the unfinished Neil Armstrong Space Port." stated the pilot "In the future that will be where all the civilian ships coming and leaving Earth will dock there."

Lt. Ryan was about to point out why waste time traveling across the stars in a ship when the Stargate made it so much easier. But she stopped herself, the gate would be pure military for a while, yes they would allow people to go to Valhalla on mass but Valhalla was a single point. In the future when they had worlds spread out over multiple systems the gate would not be able to be used just for civilian transport they needed ships. Also some items where too large to go through the gate and they would have to be transported by ships.

The Taita bomber rocked a bit as it entered the atmosphere and descended toward the Eastern coast of the United States. She knew the plan and even so she was amazed as she descended her aircraft to only a couple hundred feet off the ground and slowed down.

She looked out the cockpit as the spire of the Washington monument and the dome of the US capital building came into view. She and the flight had been given a green light to fly over the airspace and the people knew she was coming. She could see the crowds of people gathered on the mall waving at her as she flew overhead. She circled the mall allowing the people to see the bomber which had destroyed a world before making the turn and landing at Andrews Airforce base outside of Washington DC. As she brought her bird in for a landing she saw the blue and white painted Air Force One sitting in it's hanger beside it was a smaller modified Condor bomber designed for passenger transport. The Condor was painted the same colors marking it as the new Airforce One, beside it were Owls marked in the same paint colors as Marine One.

"The World has changed." Stated Lt. Ryan as she got out of her bomber and was greeted by the general in charge of the base who informed her a car was waiting to take her to a hotel where she could rest before going to the ceremonial at the Capital.

**The President of the United States along with Dr. Richard Woolsey had watched the fighter-bomber fly over the Capital building and the Washington Mall from the Rose Garden.** With that done they had walked back in and sat down in the Oval office.

"So when do you head to the colonies?" inquired the President

"I will head to Valhalla in a few hours and then it is only three ours to get to the Colonies." Stated Woolsey, both of them knew that the instruction given by the rest of the governments of the Tau'ri. They would not be handing over Valhalla like the colonials believed they would be willing to do. Valhalla had too many resources in large amounts that was key to the new technology they had gotten from the Stargate. Even if Valhalla did not have it they would not hand over the planet, the colonials had no rights to Kobol it was abounded for 2,000 years and was originally held by the Goa'uld not the human slaves.

"You do have permission to offer the Colonials Nysa back and we will even allow them to build a temple to their lords of Kobol on Valhalla as long as they understand that their faith will be treated as an equal and they have to follow our laws." stated the President

"They will not likely go for that, we are dealing with a situation similar to the Israeli Palestine issues more extremely." Stated Woolsey "It is worth a shot but it is unlikely, what about the colonial nuclear weapons, fleet size and charging their political leaders for attacking Valhalla."

The President thought for a moment.

"We are willing allow them to keep the ships they have but not building any more for a few years. We will let you settle that number but at least 10 years." explained the President as Adar nodded his head. "As for the nuclear, limit their number and the like. The political leaders are a more complex issue, the public wants them hung which is why they are massively behind this Lt. Ryan and her bombing of the colonial world. But their leaders will not hand themselves over to us because they know what will likely happen to them. Push for that at first but then offer them to have the Nox hear them out and settle the case, we can sell that to the public."

"Alright." confirmed Woolsey as he looked down at the list of the others who would be taking part in the talks with him. He would be leading the talks for the Tau'ri nations with the help of Doctor Daniel Jackson, his old partner Fang Gang from the Chinese government, General Leang the new commander of Valhalla will make up the official Tau'ri citizens. The final member would be a Tau'ri in all but name, Jonas Quinn who was a high ranking official from Lanagara who would be holding their vote to join the Tau'ri in two weeks. A vote that looked like it was going to be a landside vote to join the Tau'ri.

**Night was falling over Libran as President Richard Adar sat up in bed watching the news broadcasts from the main news stations.** The news was generally against him, the public wants revenge for what the Tau'ri had done. He was about to turn in and get some sleep when a knock at the door caused him to look away from the TV.

"Enter." Said the President as he got out of bed as the Sectary of Justice walked into the room with a peace of paper in his hands, the look on his face caused a chill to run down his spin as he handed the President the paper. He scanned the paper and instantly let it drop to the floor. "By the Lords of Kobol, they have just killed all hope for peace. Is there anything we can do?"

"Not unless we can change a 75 years of law," stated the Secretary of Justice. "The Quorum has had the final say in releasing prisoners because of past presidents letting out men and women who broke laws under their orders. They can also do this if a president refuses to carry out the mandatory sentence and that is what he is guilty of under colonial law."

"Frak, the Tau'ri will be here in a few hours and they want me to hold talks with them after this! Fraken idiots!" cursed the President as he tried to figure out his next move. The paper landed in a position so that both men could look down and see the writing, it was an order form the Quorum. They had answered the president offer to confirm the deal for the prisoner exchange with an order of their own, an order of execution for the Tau'ri "Terrorist" to be carried out within hours. "They have just signed the death order for both this Russian we hold and any hopes for peace with the Tau'ri in the near future."

**Well I hope you liked this chapter, I would like to thank everyone who reviewed and I ask that you keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	55. Chapter 55

**Chapter 55 The Walk**

An elevator dropped down into the harden rocks of Caprica, when the doors opened five people stepped off the elevator and was greeted by a man dressed in the green uniform of the Colonial Army. He snapped to attention and saluted the five senior members of the Quorum, one from Caprica, one from Gememon, one from Sagittaron and the last two from the bombed world of Aquaria.

"Sirs." said the commander to the five men who had stepped off the elevator. "Welcome to the high detention center."

"Well you know why we are here." stated the member of the Quorum from Gememon "It is time to strike back against the Tau'ri for what they did to the people of the colonies and to Aquaria most of all."

"Sirs, I have gotten orders from the President and from the Vice President that they request that you stop this until they can convince you the mistake of doing this." explained the commander of the base.

"They have been asking us and other leaders to not do this, but it is what the people demand. This man is a terrorist who tried to assassinate our president and he needs to receive the punishment of a terrorist." Stated the member of the Quorum from Caprica "We also need to think about what it will say to other terror groups who might try to do attacks on us. No the law is clear we need to do this and if the President and to my great disappointment the vice president will not do this then the Quorum will."

"I am legally bond to follow this order, I will prepare the firing squad but I am concern about what they will do to our prisoners." Said the Commander

"They will likely kill one." admitted a member from Aquaria with a shrug. "They have already destroyed an entire world; it is time for the Tau'ri to learn some honor."

"Yes, and Commander forget the firing squad use the method that the law requires not what we generally do." ordered another Aquaria member as the Commander blinked before nodding his head. "Also we have a news crew coming to broadcast it and some honor guest, the victims of people the Tau'ri terrorist have killed."

"Sirs, that would require us to take this…event up to the parade ground and showing it to the public is something I can't agree with." advised the Commander

"It is something we are doing." ordered the senior quorum member "The public needs to see this."

**The footsteps bounced off the hall as Lt. Ryan walked down the hall in her dress white uniform, she still had trouble wrapping her mind around where she was and who was all around her. **She stood in the National Statuary Hall inside the US Capital Building, it wasn't the statues or the building itself she couldn't wrap her mind around, it was who was all around her. She could see just from her one spot some of the most powerful people in the United States. The President was there, along with other officials from the white house, the senators and congressional representatives were there, alongside the elected officials where military officials and private citizens. She recognized but could not name the man talking with the President now, but she knew he owned an NBA team. A group of Senators where talking with a woman she had seen on the TV a few times talking about business, she was a CEO of some major company. There were other people spread out over the capital and she could have walked into the rotunda or the hall of columns or even the crypts and found people talking.

"You seam lost?" inquired a voice from behind her as she turned to see an older man in the dress uniform of the air force, her green eyes widened as she realized who it was. She snapped to attention almost spilling her wine glass. "General O'Neill, sir."

"At ease." laughed O'Neill "Now it is Rose right?"

"Yes, sir." confirmed Rose Ryan

"Please call me Jack, that is an order for as long as we are stuck here might as well talk like normal people." ordered the head of the Tau'ri military.

"Yes, si…Jack." Said Rose

"Now, let me guess you have no idea why the hell you are here and why everyone is making a big deal out of you?" inquired Jack

"Yes, all I did was fly my bomber and drop a single bomb." Stated Rose "Hell they are now spending more time talking among themselves right now."

"Well that is because while the official reason for this party is to raise money for the war and believe me you don't want to know the price tag on one of those Missouri class battleships is." explained Jack "They expect to raise around a hundred million dollars tonight, both here and on line."

"Glade to see, I am so useful." stated Rose as she crossed her arms over her chest. "I just want to go and get back to doing my job."

"Well you are going to make a tour of different spots around the world, raising money and the like so you better get used to this." Advised Jack "And you better hope you don't too popular or you will have to deal with all the stuff I had to deal with since everything I did as a member of SG1 came out."

"What is that?" inquired Rose, as she took a breath she still could not believe she was talking with General Jack O'Neill. When she first heard of the Stargate she had learned about everything Jack O'Neill and SG1 had done. She could not believe it and knew that he and SG1 would go down in history as some of the greatest heroes in world history.

"They may start asking what your political stances are." explained General O'Neill as Rose raised an eyebrow. "They have been asking me that constantly, I have had multiple people from both major parties and some parties I have never even heard of asking if I want to run for President in 2024."

"Like President Eisenhower?" inquired Rose as Jack nodded.

"Yes, I have no intention of holding any office after this one. I was even going to step down in 18 months or so and retire before the whole war with the Colonial started, I might still do that. I have a pond back home which should have no fish in it." explained Jack as Rose began to see how old he really was. "When I was your age, I was doing special operations into a little place called East Germany, NATO was worried about all those tanks sitting in the east waiting to take a little drive to Paris and the USSR firing nuclear warheads was the biggest fear we had."

"The World has changed." Stated Rose, in the near future there would be three habitual worlds in this star system and countless others in the area they controlled.

"Indeed." Stated Jack

**The sound of chains could be heard in the hallway outside his cell as Senior Sargent Adrik Drugov sat up on his cot, his cell was shaped like a cube and Drugov was just able to lie down without having to work at it. **He turned his head toward the door as it opened only to see two colonial guards with shotguns raised at him.

"Is it time for the exchange?" inquired Drugov to the colonial guards as a third guard pushed in a cart with a large plateful of lamb and some sort of food that looked to be mussels only their shells where green instead of black.

"No, and there isn't going to be one." said the head guard "The Quorum has decided not to go through with the deal and instead…"

"The condemned man ate a hearty meal," stated Drugov as he looked at the food. "So this is my last meal?"

"It is it the traditional…" started the guard only to see that Drugov didn't care about the tradition of giving a soon to be dead man a certain meal. "We have a priest from the holy order of Zeus if you want to confess your sins."

"No." said the Russian coldly but to the amazement of the guards he showed no fear, instead he stood up and looked at the colonials.

"When will it happen?" inquired Drugov

"As soon as you finish your meal." Reported the Guard

"So a firing squad." Said Drugov as the Guard shook his head.

"Normally yes, but the Quorum members are demanding the old way." explained the guard "A gallows is being set up in the parade ground."

The Russian paused for a moment as he thought about the information.

"So they are going to snap my neck, at least it will be quick." stated Drugov "Will I be able to make a statement?"

"Generally no, but the Quorum want you to beg for your life…I would do it if I where you." advised the guard "They may spare your life if you do that, the image of you on your knees is just as powerful as you dead."

"I see." Stated the Russian knowing that a Spetsnaz wouldn't get on his knees.

"As for snapping your neck, no that isn't the case. You will be hung in such a way that you will be strangled," explained the guard with a shake of his head. "At worse begging forgiveness may get your death come sooner and more merciful."

"We shall see," stated Drugov as he turned his back on the guard and smiled to himself as he formed a plan in his head.

**General Leong sat in her new office near the top of Valhalla's military Headquarters' spire, currently the tower was the tallest building on the planet and likely would remain the tallest within the city of Celin for a while. **They could build higher but the shield, which had saved this city from the nuclear blast came off the tower and so anything above it would have been cut in half by extending the shield.

That was not the Chinese's General concern at the moment she was rereading the intelligence briefing about who the Colonials would be sending to the conference in five hours. She was focusing on the two people she had to deal with the most, Admiral Adama and Secretary Cain. She leaned back in her chair and took a drink of her morning cup of coffee as the sun began to rise over the city. One thing she could say about this office was that it had one amazing view, she could look out over the entire city, over the top of the smaller skyscrapers which were home to the new business which had opened up on the planet. In the distance, she could see the massive lake, which in the reflective light appeared silver. In-between the city wall and that lake was where the colonial nuclear warhead had gone off. Multiple construction crew where working around the clock to rebuild people's homes but that was something else she did not have to worry about. That was someone else's job, she was charged with defending this world and making it into a launch point for operations against the colonials if peace talks failed.

Suddenly movement to her right caused her to look up from her computer pad where her report was, the movement which had brought her attention was in fact her black and white cat jumping on low cabinet which ran along one side of the office. She paid the cat no mind, she was just exploring her new living area and would settle down soon like she had every other time. She turned back to the report only to be taken away from it again when a knock at the distance door caused her to turn toward it.

"Enter." ordered General Leong, she expected an aid or maybe a member of the cleaning crew. She kept different hours from General Raj-sing and the staff would have to change with that. What she got was an elderly man dressed in a jacket and walking with the aid of a cane. "Minster Fang Gang."

The Tigress jumped to her feet and saluted before moving to help the senior member of the Chinese government on the planet. The office itself was large and was in truth three rooms that lacked separating walls, not counting the private bathroom. The largest room had an entire meeting table capable of seating eight people and was equipped with a holographic display. Across from that was a sitting area where a couch or in her case a couple of single chairs with end tables could be sat, a TV was on the wall for relaxing. Straight back from those two was the main private office where her desk and the window looking out over the city sat. From above the room was lied out in the shape of a capital T.

"Sorry to disturbed you General but I wanted to speak with you before we headed out." explained Minister Fang Gang as he sat on one of the chairs. "You don't happen to have some tea?"

"Sorry, Minister I drink coffee myself I will send for some at once." Said General Leong as the elderly man waved the idea away.

"No matter, water is fine." Stated Fang Gang, he waited as the General got him a glass of water. "Now General, in all honestly what do you think will happen with these talks? The reason I came was to find out what you think, I know what all the other major players believe and your view will be most welcomed."

"They will fail." answered the Tigress at once. "It is doomed to fail, they want this world and we can't give it to them and they will have nothingness then that."

"I agree." said the elderly Chinese man as he took a breath, as he scanned the room. The Tigress had redecorated the room the way she liked it. There was a simple elegance to it now, a Tau'ri and a Chinese flag flanked the large windows. Models of different tanks, which showed where her skills originally came from sat on the low cabinet along with her cat. A large bookshelf covered one wall of the sitting area with a bronze statue of a growling tiger resting on the center shelf. It took him a moment to find anything not related to business in the room, that was a photo of General Leong and a young woman maybe 16 or 17 years old in a school uniform. "Your daughter?"

"Niece." corrected the Tigress with warmth in her normally cold eyes. "I never married Sir, but my sister and her husband died in a car accident 9 years ago. I was all the family she had left and she is all I have, so I took her in."

"I see, is she here with you?" inquired the Minister

"No Sir, boarding school in Beijing." explained the Tigress "She graduates in a few months, I hope to see it but duty must come first. She wants to be a doctor, I told her to apply to the army medical college."

"We can arrange it easily enough," explained Minister Fang Gang as the Tigress shook her head.

"I want her to earn it, no special treatment because of who her aunt is." explained the Tigress as the elderly man nodded in understanding.

"I am concern Minister." stated the Tigress as she leaned back a bit in her chair. "My niece, is going to be living in a very different world, will she have proper respect to China's place in the world now that we are settling on so many world."

"You know I always liked the name Tau'ri." stated Fang Gang out of nowhere. "People of the 1st world, that is what it means and it fits us well. All of humanity can trace its path to Earth and therefor Earth is the center, the middle kingdom if you will."

General Leong nodded her head; she knew what the middle kingdom was. Back in the ancient days and still to some part today there was a belief among some Chinese, that China was the center of the world. They where the middle kingdom and everything radiated out from them.

"Now Earth, all of Earth is the middle Kingdom." laughed the Tigress "I wouldn't be surprised if in the future we don't even consider ourselves Chinese, American or any other nation. We will be Tau'ri first."

"That is my hope," said Fang Gang before giving a grin to the younger general. "However there must be a middle of the middle kingdom."

The Tigress shook her head and chuckled a bit, as she looked toward the row of model tanks along the wall. On that wall was a large photo of the Tau'ri flag being raised by the Chinese and American Paratroopers at Valhalla Disneyworld, the mushroom shape of the nuclear fireball clear as day in the background as the blue and silver flag moved in the wind.

"It has already begun." Stated General Leong as suddenly another nock caused her to look toward the door. "Enter."

With that an aid, walked in and snapped to attention.

"General, we have some news from the Colonials." reported the aid as he handed over a computer pad with the information to the General. The General scanned it and instantly her eyes shot wide.

"This is confirmed?" inquired General Leong

"It is, and the fools are even going to broadcast it live within the hour." stated the aid

"What is going on?" inquired Minister Fang Gang

"The Colonial government, well their quorum has just ordered the public execution of the Russian spetsnez they hold as a POW." explained General Leong

"They are turning their back on the deal we made." said Minister Fang Gang with a shake of his head. "Can you launch a rescue mission?"

"No, all reports are that they will do it within the hour, it will take three hours for any of our ships to get to him and no special forces team are nearby either." Explained General Leong as Fang Gang shook his head. "I am going to send the Odyssey anyhow, we may get lucky and there is a delay of some kind."

"The attempt must be made," added Minister Fang Gang "This kills any chance of a peace, the people will not take well to seeing one of their soldiers killed by a firing squad on TV."

"They aren't going to shot him." Said the aid as the General moved to make a call to get the Odyssey moving but then an idea came to her, an idea that while risky could possibly save the life of the POW.

"We have some ships at Nysa they can reach the colonies in minutes but they don't have cloaking technology." stated the General outload to herself as she thought about the risks before making the call.

**Back in Washington DC an aid rushed across the floor toward the President of the United States and whispered something into his ear.**

"What?" inquired the President as he and the senior members of the senate who he had been talking with turned toward the aid.

"Sir, intelligence have reported that the Colonial Quorum has rejected the prisoner exchange and has instead ordered the execution of the Russian Spetsnaz POW." explained the aid

"We had a deal with them and they are going to go back on it now?" snapped a senator "Damn them to hell."

"We have to launch a rescue mission at once," ordered the President

"We are sir, but it takes 3 hours to travel from Valhalla to the colonies and all reports say that he will be executed within the hour." stated the aid "They are going to attempt something but it is very risky and could cost us a ship."

"What do they plan to do?" inquired the President as the aid went on to explain what the military was doing to save the POW.

**Onboard the Daedalus class battlecruiser George Hammond the American crew was rushing to their stations as they prepared to carry out something that is nearly suicidal. **The captain of the USS George Hammond, commonly called the Hammond was heading toward Caprica at max speed. It was the closest Tau'ri ship being just beyond the captured micro planet of Nysa. It was only 15 minutes away from Caprica where their POW was located.

"Ok, here is what is going on." said the Captain as he gathered his officers together on the bridge. "The Colonials are going to hang a captured Spetsnaz live on TV at any moment; our orders are to prevent that. We have been cleared to beam him up even if he is in view of TV, we will not cost this man his life to keep that secret from the colonials."

"Sir, Caprica is surrounded by a large defense fleet we would be overwhelmed by the colonial defenses," stated the second officer "The moment we come out of hyperspace on the edge of the system they will know we are there and move to block us.

"Which is why we aren't going to stop at the edge of the system." explained the Captain "We are going to come out of hyperspace right over the planet, then we will beam him onboard and get the hell out of dodge."

"Sir, that is very risky." Countered another officer "We aren't small like an Owl and there is a lot of traffic around Caprica, if we come out of hyperspace in the wrong place we will run into another ship and it will be the Akula all over again. We used to do that with Earth because of there was no traffic, here it is like trying to run across a highway at blindfold at night and not getting hit by a car."

"You are not totally wrong but you are not right either, the colonials keep different sections of space over their worlds clear so that ships jumping in can come in safely, we will exit hyperspace there. The Akula got hit when they unknowingly passed into one of those areas." explained the Captain "It should be cleared of any ships moving around the planet."

"Unless ships are jumping in and then we will ran right into them and sir, for about three seconds after we come out of hyperspace we have no shields," stated the second officer. "Sir, I admit this plan could likely work but if we time this wrong we are in major trouble, could we launch an owl to give us more information."

"No, time." explained the Captain "We are going to have to play this by ear, now once we are in orbit how long to beam him up?"

"10 to 15 seconds." said another officer "Sir, the issue is that if he is hanging then we can't beam an entire gallows up here? Beam technology has it's limits and if something is too big then I can't beam it up."

"Alright have two squads of marines standing by, if we have too they will beam down and get him, tell them they are clear to kill anyone who gets in their way. This is a military base, their shouldn't be any civilians who aren't attached to the government." Ordered the Captain as the commander of the onboard marine force nodded his head.

"I have a surprise for them in mind," added the Marine

"If he is already dead, then we will beam him onboard and we will pay them back, prepare mark IX to be beamed onboard ships and since most of this base is underground we will beam one down there as we pull out." explained the Captain "Are we clear?"

"Yes, sir." confirmed everyone around the table.

"Good, because we got 10 minutes to get everything ready…move." ordered the Captain as the Hammond powered through hyperspace toward Caprica.

**Drugov was dressed in a simple pair of black pants and a tan shirt with combat boots on as he stood in the elevator with four armed colonial soldiers one with a pistol to the back of his head and another with a shotgun placed in the small of the back. **They were so afraid of him that they had gone beyond the normally hand and leg restraints. The elevator door opened as they moved down a hallway, as they did the guards moved into a more traditional spot only to be joined by four more for a grand total of 8 guards to prevent an injured Spetsnaz from escaping. They moved outside and the Russian found himself standing in a large courtyard surrounded by a stonewall maybe a dozen feet high.

"Must be an old base to have a stone wall around the parade ground," stated Drugov as he looked around the parade ground. It was full of people most of them in full dress uniform, somewhere even civilians who had come to watch him die judging from how the military personal was acting around them they had to be members of the government.

"No, it is just tradition." Explained a nearby guard as they guided him up a stone staircase up to the ramparts, from there he could see the rest of the base outside the walls, outside it looked like a normal base. A woman dressed in flowing robes stood by a rope, which rested beside a wooden plank which came off the ramparts.

"Sir, are you sure you do not wish to make repentance to the Lords of Kobol?" inquired the woman in the robes. "It could save your soul."

The Russian gave her a one-finger answer which she didn't understand but got the message quickly as he stepped onto the platform and allowed one of the guards to drop the rope around his neck. With that done another man walked forward with a microphone and held it close to his mouth.

"You can now make a statement to your victims." Said the man

"I will make a statement but I have no this is a war, I am a solider, I am a Spetsnaz, I am a Russian and I am a Tau'ri you and your people started this war and I helped pay you back for the crime you all did when you dropped a nuclear bomb on Valhalla." stated Drugov. "I was on Valhalla, I saw the flash of the bomb, I moved through the wasteland you made from what used to be people's homes. You were the ones who are the criminals, not me and you will pay."

"You have no regrets?" Inquired the Priestess

"My only regret is that I can't take you all with me. So go to hell all of you and when you get there I will be there ready to have some fun with you." said Drugov as he raised his bound and formed a sign of the cross and held his hands up to his forehead. The hangman looked toward the base commander who was standing near the front row with the members of the Quorum. Beside the Quorum members and military officer there was about two dozen civilians the youngest being only 16 years old. All of them had lost someone to the Tau'ri terrorist attacks looked on as they waited for their vengeance.

Finally, with a nod, the hangman pulled a level and the platform dropped away, the colonials expected the Russian to die, instead he had grabbed the rope with his bound hand and held on. He was still hanging there but with his hands wrapped around the rope no pressure was on his neck. There was some slight disappointment at not having the end come sooner but judging from the amount of blood, which was coming from the wrapped wrist of the Russian and the slow slide of his hand. It would not be long until he was dangling from the end of the rope.

The image of the Spetsnaz hanging for his life on a rope was being broadcasted across the entire colonies and had been taken up by the Tau'ri news stations. Everyone was holding their breath as people on multiple worlds prayed, some for him to die and others for him to live.

Unaware of what was happening a Colonial Civilian spaceship jumped over Caprica and began to broadcast to the full flight that they had arrived on schedule and that they will begin their descendant down toward Caprica. The pilots warned them to remain sitting and that due to storms the descendant would be slightly bumpy. It was a little girl looking out the window at the blue green planet which saw it first, a vortex of energy opened up to the side of the spaceship. Out of that vortex came another ship heading straight toward her ship.

She let out a scream which was sucked out into the void of space just as her ship smashed into the newly raised shipped shield, the powerful shield cut straight through the ship as the Daedalus ship moved into position over Caprica.

"Sir, we hit a ship of some kind!" yelled the sensor operator on the Daedalus

"Any damage?" inquired the Captain

"The shield took the blow," explained another officer "I got no life signs whatever we hit everyone is gone."

"And so will our Russian friend." stated the Captain "Let's get started."

Down on the planet some of the Colonials where getting uneasy of seeing this man who was slowly slipping closer and closer to being hung. The three news camera which where coving the event watched from different views, on camera looked out over the crowd from behind, another showed the crowd from the front and the last one was zoomed in on the Russian's face.

"Sir, can we just end this?" inquired the base commander "This isn't honorable."

"It was wasn't honorable that he and the other terrorist did, you saw Aquaria…" started the Quorum member only to stop as beams of light filled the courtyard. When it cleared 12 figures now stood before them which hadn't been there before. The 12 figures where split up into four different groups, two of the groups where made out of 4 man each while the other two groups had only two members each. Ten of figures held massive guns while the other two had rifles.

There was no time as the 10 figures with the massive guns began to fire into the crowd of colonials who had gathered to hang the Tau'ri. All of the colonial soldiers where armed but none were expecting a fight and the man where firing machine guns feed by what seemed to be backpack mounted fire ports.

Drugov was hanging on for his life when he saw the flash and knew he was all but saved, a dozen men all dressed in US marine uniforms with power packs with the additional backpack feed M240 medium machine guns. They opened up on the colonials who had no place to run and no place to hide, 8 of them where spread out in front of him firing straight forward while another two fired down from positions on the stone ramparts. Out of the corner of his eye he saw two others armed with rifles running toward him. He felt them wrap there arms around him just as his strength left him, they didn't even waste time untying the rope and instead shot it off.

"We got him, beam us up!" yelled one of his saviors as he was engulfed in light, the next thing he knew he was sitting on the deck of a ship with the rope still wrapped around his neck but part of it hanging loose. A couple more flashes and the room was full of American Marines.

On the bridge, they had gotten word of the rescue as well as the beam up of the remains of the two dead Spetsnazs from the ground. The Hammond turned to leave just as the closest battlestar began to fire on the Tau'ri ship.

"Blow that sucker away!" yelled the second officer as the nuke which was destined to destroy the colonial base on the ground was instead beamed on board the battlestar which disappeared in a flash moments later. There was no time to prepare a second nuke as the Hammond powered away from the planet just enough to open a hyperspace window and disappear leaving a bloodbath behind them.

**Yes, I saved the Russian. I was not going to do that, I was going to kill him but this idea came to mind and I really liked it and it opened up new story points. Now the Colonials know about beaming once and for all. Now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	56. Chapter 56

**Chapter 56 War of Images**

President Richard Adar had as almost every citizen of the 12 colonies of Kobol who was awake had been watching the TV broadcast of the hanging of the Tau'ri POW. He was sick to his stomach as he watched the Tau'ri grab onto the rope in a vain attempt to hold off death. The camera zoomed in to show him struggling to hold off reach of Hades Lord of the Dead, blood was pouring from where Secretary Cain's knife had dove into his palm. The screen split to show both the zoomed up image of the man's face and a more general overview of the gathering.

"My the Lords of Kobol keep us safe from the storm that will come from this." pleaded President Adar. As he finished the prayer blinding flashes of light appeared in different spots on the screen, the camera man spun to zoom in on one of them just as the light faded to show the full visor of a Tau'ri solider helmet. He held a massive machine gun in his hands with a belt heading back toward a large pack on his back. The solider raised his machine gun and pulled the trigger, screams came out the speakers as the camera zoomed out to show 10 figures firing machine guns into the crowd. It was slaughter as man and women in colonial uniforms where mowed down like crops before a harvester. Two other Tau'ri could be seen rushing toward the hanging POW. One fired a rifle and shot off the rope while the other wrapped his arms around the hanging man. Then before the eyes of everyone watching the POW and the two soldiers who had gotten to him disappeared in flashes of light. Moments after those lights faded the bullets stopped firing and the other 10 disappeared in a larger flash of light.

What they left behind was nothing short of a blood bath, blood was flowing across the stones bodies of the wounded and dead formed islands in a sea of blood. Some of those islands began moving as some began to stand up or at least try to stand up. Some had arms blown off by the machine gun bullets others had the same thing happen only to their legs. Armed soldiers in Colonial Army Olive green rushed into view weapons raised but the threat was already gone. The camera feed cut then replaced by the image of a reporter in a studio with his mouth hanging open like an idiot.

"What was that?" inquired an aid as she stood beside her president.

"That seams to be teleportation technology of some kind." stated Admiral Adama who had been watching the broadcast with the President as well.

"But telliportation, that is impossible." stated the President "That is something out of scifi shows, that can't happen in real life."

"Sir, the experts would agree with you but the experts can't explain what we saw in any other way I can think of." countered Adama "Teleportation would also explain how they are able to destroy our ships with no clear sign of missile launch and with all the explosions coming from within the ship."

"Teleport a warhead onboard and the ship goes up before anyone can do anything." stated the aid as she wrapped her mind around the idea. "Armor would be pointless and they could have the warhead appear in a closet and still destroy the ship. There has to be a defense against this."

"There is." stated Adama as everyone looked at him. "Look at the battles we have had with them, ships only blow up suddenly when they get so close to the Tau'ri, the teleport must have a range. When our ships enter that range, they are destroyed."

"So fire at them from long range." advised an aid as Admiral Adama looked at her as if she was an idiot, which she was.

"Their ships are faster and can close the distance to get in range, it would work at the start of a battle but not for long." Stated Adama

"We need the RND people looking what the range of this teleport is and maybe they can think of a way to stop it." Added the aid

"We didn't even think this was possible, how can we defend against something we didn't even think possible." countered Adama before turning back to the TV screen, it scene had changed to show the remains of a battlestar over Caprica. The battlestar wasn't the only thing floating dead in space, the remains of a civilians space liner was also there. The Red and Gold paint on the side showed it belonged to a Phoenix carrier based out of Tauron.

"We have this other story, looks like a Tau'ri vessel rammed a civilian space liner most likely killing everyone onboard." said the reporter "We have one of our news raptors on the scene and…"

The voice stopped as the news raptor camera zoomed in on a little girl, maybe 8 years old at the most likely somewhere between 6 and 7. She had bold red hair tied back in pigtails with bright green eyes, she was dressed in a white sundress which stood out against the black void. In her small hands was a doll of some kind, but the most horrifying thing was her face. It was frozen in death with a horrible scream.

"That…that is so horrible." Said the newsman "That little innocent girl murdered by our Godsless cousins so that they can save a terrorist."

"That is horrible." stated President "That poor girl."

"That girl will cause this war to go on." countered Adama with a shake of his head, even he was coming around to how outmatched they seemed to be against the Tau'ri. "I feel for her family but she will be made into a symbol, Mr. President because of that image you will likely not get any peace deal you make with the Tau'ri through the Quorum. That is a powerful image one that will burn in people's hearts and make them fill with rage."

"It is a powerful image." Confirmed the aid

"I wouldn't be surprised if we don't have a peace conference." added Adama "We just broadcast a near hanging of a Tau'ri, what will the people of Earth think about that? I don't think their people will be in the mood to make peace, or at least a peace which will give us anything."

"They have to make peace." stated Adar "There is no benefit to them for a bloody war."

"It has been pretty blood free for them." countered Adama "We have destroyed three ships and two of them where not even fully destroyed but heavily damaged. With all their technological advantages why should they stop this war at anything short of our unconditional surrender."

"The Cylons…" started Adar only to stop himself. "The Tau'ri wouldn't be worried about the Cylons, to them they are just as backwards technology wise and the Cylons seam happy to sit back and watch this war."

"Sir, we have to make peace but I don't see how we can get a peace that the people and the Quorum will accept." stated Adama

"We have one key advantage numbers, from all reports we have a lot more ships then they do and likewise we have more soldiers and marines. We can overwhelm them in swarm attacks, issue is that costs a lot for every ship we destroy." Added the aid as Adama gave him a stupid look again. "With our likely larger amount of factories and raw material we may be able to make this war so costly to them that they will accept a peace that the Quorum and the people will accept."

"At the cost of countless lives." countered Adama before turning to his president. "Sir, that plan could work but it is worth the cost, we are fighting to reclaim Kobol and reunite the colonies. We can throw that second goal out the window; there is no peace deal that the Tau'ri will accept that will bring them under our control. So we are fighting for Kobol, what the Tau'ri call Valhalla and we can't even be sure that it is Kobol. We are going off some photos of remains taken from orbit which seem to match our ancient descriptions of Kobol. We are going to throw all those lives into the fire because of what we think this planet could possibly be?"

"Admiral Adama, I agree with you. This isn't worth it." admitted President Adar before letting out a deep resigned sigh. "However the people believe it is Kobol and while we may not be sure, they are. We are serve the people and they demand Kobol at whatever price and unless the Tau'ri give us Kobol I see nothing that can convince a large part of our people from giving up."

Adama growled a bit, he knew his president was right he had seen the spiritual reawakening happening across the colonies. People who had not gone to a temple in years if not decades where going and praising the Lords of Kobol in the streets. The media was playing up every small action to make it look huge; one that came to mind was the Tau'ri world bird being what they call an Owl. All the other worlds bird where songbirds, that was a tradition dating back to just after they left Kobol but Earth had picked a bird of prey.

The people of Earth had no idea about the tradition of their cousins when they picked the bird and on the surface it was meaningless but the media played it up and got the religious people rallied up which gave it meaning. Now this image of a dead little girl floating in space, that was powerful in it's own right but it was just the next go around in a never ending circle of images which rallied up support for the war and that called down damnation on the Tau'ri.

The Tau'ri had similar images he had seen them when they launched their attack on the Quorum building hanging them in the temple of Apollo. Images of a solider holding a bleeding child in his arms with a mound of rubble behind him. Those soldiers raising a pole with the Tau'ri flag on it while a mushroom cloud, loamed behind them in the distance. Now there was the image of the Tau'ri solider hanging from a rope fighting for his life, how many people would be calling for blood on Earth for that image, how many would take up arms against the 12 colonies of Kobol, how could their political leaders accept a peace that would give the same people who tried to hang a man on TV anything. They couldn't and that put both sides in a corner, neither side could give in because the public the average citizen in the street was calling for vengeance.

"This war is going to get a lot nastier," stated Adama

**Major Jager had been watching the news broadcast from a bar on Valhalla, like everyone else in the bar he had stopped talking and watched the TV hanging over the bar. **Anger was building among everyone in the room, almost all of them where military either personal or family members of military personal so seeing a POW hanging on for his life on TV filled everyone with rage. People cursed the colonials and slammed their fists onto the bar or their tables. Then in a flash of light everything changed as a cheer went up as Marines, US marines judging from the flag patch on their uniforms appeared and opened fire on the colonials mowing them down with machine gun fire.

"Yes…go…kill those sons of bitches!" yelled a British tanker behind Jager as he looked around the bar, it was set up in a British style but it was full of tankers from multiple nations. Jager felt no pity as the colonials where cut down like wheat before a harvester. It was over in a couple of moments and then all the Tau'ri including the Russian Spetsnaz disappeared in flashes of light. A cheer went up as the warriors of the Tau'ri celebrated the rescue of one of their own.

"A Round on the House!" yelled the owner of the bar causing even more cheers as he and the female bartenders began to pour multiple beers into different steins. Jager shook his head a one of the bartenders, a pretty blonde placed a stein down in front of him.

"Shouldn't we be having vodka? A Russian was saved." observed Jager as the bartender laughed.

"If you want to pay for all that, you are more than welcome to buy everyone a round." stated the Bartender.

**In another bar sat Lieutenant Kara Thrace, she had been gotten off duty and headed toward the nearest bar to the base on Conceron, near the largest city on the planet Mangala. **She had just walked in just in time to see the stand holding the Tau'ri drop away, she like everyone else in the bar excepted that it would be over soon.

"Kill the fraker!" yelled a few people in the bar as Kara made her way toward the bar.

She had reached the bar and ordered a drink, when suddenly multiple flashes of light filled the screen. Everyone in the bar became deadly quiet as they watched stunned as Tau'ri soldiers suddenly appeared in flashes of light before opening up with machine guns. Then within a couple of moments, it was over and the Tau'ri disappeared in flashes of light leaving only death behind.

"What the frak was that?" inquired a woman near Kara

"I have no fraken idea." Confirmed Kara as the image changed to a man in the newsroom. "But it can't be good for us."

The after a few moments the image of a red haired girl in a white dress appeared on the screen, her eyes unseeing and her face twisted into a horrifying scream. Instantly the bar filled with rage as people cursed out the Tau'ri and cried for the loss of this little girl.

**Onboard the Hammond Drogov sat in the medical bay; he sat in a padded chair, which reminded him of a dentist chair. **The onboard doctor was looking him over as a nurse worked a new piece of medical technology. On the surface, it looked nothing special a moveable light with an extra-large box at the end. It gave off a strange bluish green light, which was focused on Drogov's wounded hand. From a distance it did not look like anything was happening but from up close it was amazing. The deep stab, which had been done by Helen Cain's knife, a stab which had gone all the way through his hand was slowly closing up. Muscles where getting reattached, skin was growing and while it was a slow process it was by far the best method they had on the ship, more advanced versions where clear in hospitals but they were too bulky to be placed on a Daedalus class ship.

"Senior Sargent Drogov." said the Captain of the Hammond as he moved up toward the only POW that the colonials had taken. "How are you feeling?"

"Better than I was a while ago." confirmed Drogov as he rubbed his neck with his good hand, a rope burn was clearly visible. "What took you so long to get me?"

"At first we didn't know you were alive, the beacon in your neck broadcasts your location dead or alive." explained the Captain "And then we had worked out a POW exchanged, 24 of theirs for you. They decided they would rather kill you as a boost to their public moral."

"All well and good, when can I return to action?" stated Drogov as he looked at the doctor.

"A few days, you have multiple small wounds and your hand needs some time as well. Everything will be attached again but it takes some time for everything to settle down." Explained the Doctor

"I wouldn't be surprised if you are recalled to Earth." explained the Captain "I am sure you will make the press rounds, shake the hands of world leaders and the like."

"Waste of time but very well." stated Drogov

"It will take us about three hours to reach Valhalla and from there the Stargate will take you back to Earth," explained the Captain as the Russian nodded his head before heading out of the room.

**Hours later General Leong sat in guest quarters on the Missouri, looking at the holographic screen, which showed the news broadcasts from her home nation state media. **The image which was being shown was the image of the Russian Spetsnaz hanging from a rope trying to save his own life, his hands where slick with blood and it was clear that he wouldn't last long. Reporters where saying how this was an unjustifiable breach of the rules of war, that prisoners most of all ones who had already been agreed to be traded should not be hung. She used her finger running it across the screen to switch to BBC and listened as a brown haired woman talked about how this was cruel and they showed people in the streets of London calling for more military actions. She swiped her hand across the screen and came across the American CNN who had a panel of six people talking over each other about what the Colonials had done and what actions needed to be done. While the panel talked in one quarter of the screen, it showed images of the Russian hanging for life with the zoomed in images of the smiles on some colonial faces in the crowd as they watched him fight for his life.

General Leong tapped a few commands on the key pad and brought up the images coming out of 12 colonies of Kobol news. Like their Tau'ri counterparts the multiple news media in the 12 colonies where playing up the events of the day but while the Tau'ri where focusing on the attempted hanging. The colonial was focusing on the death of the 97 people most of all on the girl in the white dress who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Each side was calling for blood and vengeance against the other and that made her even more sure than ever that this attempt to make peace would be useless.

A beeping sound came from a small devise on the desk; she tapped it as a holographic image of a man in a lower ranking US air force uniform appeared before her.

"General, we are nearing Libran, we will be arriving in 10 minutes." Reported the lower ranking officer as the Chinese General nodded her head before cutting the link. She stood up and grabbed her dark olive green uniform jacket. She adjusted the new addition to her normal uniform, around the collar was a patch split in three parts, black, white and red. She had gotten one of the new uniforms and as such had the color patches around the caller, which could id her skill set. She had a two color collar, black for armored warfare and red for army. A pin of three stars marked her rank as a three star general. There was 12 colors used for the different roles in the military. Once she had that done she picking up a computer tablet, she sent out a few more orders before heading toward the bridge. She moved toward the bridge as she walked she saw that part of the crew was wearing the new uniforms while the other half still wore the older solely American uniform. That fact did not go unnoticed by the General, they still trying to integrate the militaries of the different governments within the Tau'ri.

She walked onto the bridge to see a blue and green world surrounded by a line of Colonial battlestars, smaller dots where buzzing around the screen which had to be fighters of some kind.

"General." said the General in command of the Missouri, he wore a day uniform which was a simple coverall with an American flag and a Tau'ri flag on each shoulder. He also had patches which showed the ships seal. He had a single star on each of his shoulders and in the collar patch was a split in two parts as well, Royal for being in the Airforce and White for being assigned to a ship. "The colonials have formed a defensive line but they have not opened fire upon us."

"That is good General," said General Leong as she noticed Doctor Woolsey talking on the radio to someone.

"They are making sure it is safe to go down to the surface." explained the General in command of the Missouri. "We will have beam locks on you all at all time and if need be we will beam you out and carry out our relation plan."

"I know." said General Leong, she had helped draft those retaliation plans for any attempt to attack the Missouri or the delegation. If they did try something then a colonial city would disappear in a nuclear fireball, something that neither side wanted so it was possible that it wouldn't happen.

"General, I have some orders for the different special forces we have on colonial worlds make sure it is sent out." Ordered General Leong as the American General looked down at the computer pad she handed him.

"Soil samples?" inquired the Air force General

"Yes, they will be key to future operational planning." explained General Leong "Tanks, armored vehicles and infantry move better over different terrain and soil types then others. I also need detail maps of the areas I have listed not just the ones taken from the colonial computer network. I need them up to our level."

"I understand General, the orders will go out." confirmed the American General as Doctor Woolsey moved toward them.

"General we are cleared to enter orbit of Libran, the colonials understand what will happen if they should misbehave." explained Woolsey as the Missouri started moving forward**.**

**Down on the planet The Supreme Hall of Justice was the most well known building in the city of Themis the capital of Libran, the city itself had been placed on total lockdown and the most heavily guarded building was the Supreme Hall of Justice.** The entire building was the heart of the Colonial legal system and was the only branch of the Colonial government based off of Caprica. Some would say that the military which had its headquarters over Picon was but it's old command center and still official headquarters was on Caprica and had been destroyed by the Tau'ri in the opening moments of the war. The hall of justice was spread out over multiline side buildings but the main building was shaped on the outside like the US capital building only instead of a large dome a tall clock tower shot out of the center.

Sitting under that clock tower was the great hall of justice; it was grand welcoming hall it was in this room where the meeting between the Tau'ri and the Colonials will happen. The room itself was made out of white marble with columns every 12 feet. In between each column was either a statue of one of the Lords of Kobol or of great people in their history. A walkway moved around the entire hall on the second floor with two grand staircases to the North and South. The marble floor had been cleaned to a shine and an oaken table had been set up in the center of the room. Colonial flags hung along one side of the hall instead of all around like they normally did.

The walkways had been cleared and the entire building had been cleared as well, only a handful of people where in the building. A single Colonial camera crew made up of three people, a camera man, a sound woman and the reporter had been set up on the walkway overlooking the table. Mircophones had been set up in front of each of the ten chairs which surrounded the table. Four Colonial Army in full combat uniforms, bullet proof vests, assault rifles and helmets stood along the columnade on the South wall. Normally they would be in dress uniforms but not now, these men and a single woman where members of Ares Spears the best train and highly skilled unit in the colonial army.

"We have just learned that the Tau'ri ship has entered orbit." Reported the reporter on the baycon as suddenly four Tau'ri soldiers in full battle armor appeared in flashes of light

A single Tau'ri guard moved up into the balycon, the Tau'ri guard which carried a large case stopped at different points and using the hooks built into the wall which hung the normal colonial flags soon found themselves hanging Tau'ri flags. The big eight was hung with the largest single flag being the navy and silver flag of the Tau'ri government in the center of the other eight. The guard then moved back downstairs and took up their position across from the Colonial counter parts each of them eyeing the other. The only thing is that the helmeted visors of the Tau'ri prevented the colonials from glaring into the eyes of the Tau'ri.

"As you can see the guards have arrived in the same strange way that they appeared earlier." stated the colonial reporter. The colonials news experts where still debating what had happened a few hours ago when the Tau'ri had appeared in flashes of light, there was a long list of theories about what had happened. For a couple of moments nothing happened then five more people appeared in flashes of lights.

President Richard Adar walked back and forth in the a side room waiting for word to go out and hopefully make peace with the Tau'ri and end this pointless war. He had half expected the Tau'ri not to show up but the fact that they had come after what had happened on Caprica, gave him hope that a peace deal could be reached.

He would rather have done this in private but broadcasting it live would settle the nears of the Quorum and any peace needed the Quorum. He looked around at the four other people he had gathered to help him make peace. The second chair in this meeting was Helen Cain, that was to make the Quorum and war hawks happy. His main military advisor was Admiral Adama and his main religious advisor was none other than the head of the holy Order of Zeus and the older brother of the vice president Priest Spiro. The last member of the team was the head of the supreme court of the Colonies of Kobol, Varvara Delis and that was because the meeting was being held in the highest court in the colonies.

"Mr. President, the Tau'ri delegation as arrived." Reported an aid as Adar took a deep breath before nodding to everyone and walking out of the door into the long hallway which ran by one of the grand staircases. They walked together toward the grand hall where the table had been set up, as they entered the hall they passed under the flag of the colonial government. That is when the President saw the men and women that the Tau'ri had sent. Two of them he knew, in the center of the group was Richard Woolsey who he had been dealing with up until the start of the war. Beside him walking with a cane was the elderly man, Fang Gan. The other three where people he didn't know, one was a man with short buzz hut hair but warm eyes. He had a flag pin on his suit that Adar had never seen before, beside him was another clean shaven man. He was well built and wore a suit with a pair of glasses. The last one was a woman and she was in a Tau'ri dress uniform. Her dark eyes where cold as she glared at the colonials with what a look that caused a chill to move up the President's spin. They all stopped in front of their chairs.

"Doctor Woolsey welcome back to the Colonies of Kobol." Greeted Adar as he purposely didn't add the number of colonies to the greeting.

"Before we begin Mr. President, I have to inform you again that the Battleship Missouri which is currently sitting over this world has orders to fire on this world if anything happens to us in any way." Explained Woolsey

"We would never hurt invited guests for a conference." stated the head of the Supreme Court of the Colonies, Varvara Delis.

"Lets see, you have imprisoned a Tau'ri Colonel for not answering your questions, you have carried out a nuclear surprise attack on a peaceful world and your vice president attempted to murder the peace envoy from the Nox. Then there was what happened earlier when you attempted to hang a POW which had an agreed trade deal had been reached." Stated the elderly Chinese man "The only reasons why we haven't demanded this meeting take place on Valhalla or on that space station you built for talking to the Cylons is because we knew you wouldn't accept that."

"We would have accepted to hold these talks on Kobol." Countered Priest Spiro "As for the Cylon space station, we would not go with the Cylon fleet sitting right there."

"And we don't want you anywhere near Valhalla." Stated the military personal "You would gather intel and that can't be allowed."

"Well let's hope we can end this pointless war." stated Adar as he introduced his party, then it came to Woolsey's turn, first he introduced himself and Fang Gan, then he introduced the man with the strange flag pin was a man named Jonas Quinn representing some place the Colonial's hadn't heard before named Langara. The other man was Dr. Daniel Jackson and the woman was General Leong Leong who was now commanding all forces on Valhalla. With that everyone sat down and the talks began, before the talks could begin Priest Spiro stood up.

"Before we begin, let us pray to the Lords of Kobol so that they can guide us all to the right path." Said Priest Spiro

"No." stated General Leong sternly causing the head of the order of Zeus eyes to widen a bit, he hadn't expected the Tau'ri to join him in praying but he hadn't expected them to flat out refuse him to carry out the prayer. "We have come to talk not to pray to your gods or any god, we have practical concerns not spiritual ones."

"While I wouldn't have been as out front as the General, but she is right let us move on if we go into religion we will only get stuck." said Doctor Jackson "We are here to make peace now let us talk."

"Alright, lets begin." Said Adar

**Well I hope you liked this chapter, I have been busy narrowing down the list of story ideas that people have been sending me. I have gotten some very detailed ideas and some very loss ideas. I have reworked some of them into something I like better than the original version and I have even gotten a few repeat requests. If you have any more please feel free to send them to me in a PM. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	57. Chapter 57

**One Important note before the next chapter, Monday will be the last day that I will take any requests for a new story. One that day I will settle on the choices that I will put before you when I post next time. Just to let you know, I have had multiple people give me multiple ideas and some of them are general they same. To give you an idea I have had around 10 people request a Mass Effect Stargate story and they have put up ideas on how to carry that out. I looked at them and didn't really like any of them but I kept thinking about it and found a way I did like. That it what I am doing you guys are telling me what you would like and a general idea and I either work from their or think of a way to get you what you want in the best way I think possible. Now once again come Monday 10/31/16 at 9 PM Eastern Time I will no longer be taking story ideas. Enjoy the story, Wilkins75**

**Chapter 57 Disregarded Demands**

Ten people sat at the long oaken table in the Supreme Hall of Justice of the 12 Colonies of Kobol, five of them where colonials, four of them Tau'ri and a single man from Langara. Behind each group stood a handful of guards who where there in case something went wrong. The colonial guards where there to protect their president and the other members of their government, the Tau'ri guards where there to kill them if they had to. The battleship Missouri which floated over the planet would beam them all onboard if they had to.

"Now shall we begin?" inquired President Adar

"Yes, lets." said Woolsey who was the head of the Tau'ri delegation. He lifted a glass of water to his lips and let the colonials have the first words.

"This war serves no one, we all wish for peace." started Adar

"Peace is our fondest hope as well." added Woolsey as Adar smiled, seeing an opening.

"Yes, now there are some key issues which separated us from our goal of peace but maybe if we all bend a little peace can be found." said Adar, Admiral Adama was sitting across from his counterpart the female General Leong. He noticed that she grinned ever so slightly at his president's comment. "We propose that we strike a peace here and now, the main issues we see comes two main issues. First is the position of the Earth within the collection of the colonies of Kobol and secondly the status of Kobol or as you have names it Valhalla."

"We would agree that is a concern of yours but you have to understand that Earth is not a colony of Kobol. Kobol as you call it or as our research as discovered the Goa'uld called it Raluch was a world of the Goa'uld System Lord Zeus where he held human slaves from Earth." stated Daniel Jackson as Priest Spiro the head of the Holy order of Zues glared at him. "You have no claim over the people of Earth."

Daniel held back on saying that there was a second Earth populated by Cylons but he did not want to expose that Cylons in the past had taken human form.

"We will disagree with your belief because the holy scrolls say otherwise." said Spiro

"Legally as well under colonial law you are a colony." added Justice Varvara Delis

"The laws of one world has no effect on another world." Stated Jonas Quinn "I am from Langara, we are currently an independent world from the Tau'ri. We can pass our own laws as we wish now in a week we are holding a vote to join the Tau'ri and if it passes everything changes but if we vote not to enter and the Tau'ri pass a law to make us members doesn't mean we would accept it."

The Colonials looked at him for a moment, not fully grasping the statememt.

"You are not a Tau'ri?" inquired Cain

"No, my world is descendant from slaves taken from Earth in the past." explained Jonas "We are very close allies with them, they have brought us many advancements and have saved us from enslavement from the Goa'uld Anubis and later from the ORI. I have to tell you a lot of people on my world and other human worlds are very concern about the statement made by your Vice President to the Nox envoy, that you had claims over everyone in the galaxy."

"A likely story, do you have any proof that you can show us that would tell us you are not a Tau'ri?" inquired Priest Spiro "And even if you aren't from Earth we don't know if your people where originally part of the 13th tribe that split off on its way to Earth to found this Lanaga."

Jonas Quinn blinked, they had mountains of evidence which showed the truth but it was all evidence that the hard core religious would say was faked.

"Well he may have overstepped his power there." Stated Adar as he took a breath and decided to make his move. He pushed the idea of a human world without them being Tau'ri out of his mind and moved on. "The offer we want to present to you is simple and from what we can see will settle everything. We will free you of every claim on your people and on the rest of the people in the galaxy and in return you will give us back Kobol."

Adar smiled as he looked across the table at the Tau'ri, he saw no reason why they would not agree to this. They claimed to have control over 20% of the galaxy, which had to be thousands of worlds there was no reason why they would care about a single world. It held no religious importance; it was just being settled so they had no long history on the world. He saw the looks that they were giving him and quickly added.

"We will of course allow you time to resettle your people and we will pay in gold or another element of your choice for some of the costs." Stated Adar, he knew getting the Quorum to agree to payment for Kobol would be hard but he could sell it. The price of the war was worth it. The Tau'ri would trade away a meaningless rock to them and everyone would get peace.

"No." stated Woolsey flatly "Valhalla, is ours and it will remain ours. That is a none negotiable issue."

Adar's world came crashing down on him, he had expected them to say no but that would have been just a show and after some talk he would get them to agree but the tone of voice said there would be no movement on that issue.

"Kobol, is our holy world you have no claim to it." said Priest Spiro as Fang Gang shook his head.

"No, you have no claim to that world. As we said you where slaves there and left during the Asgard attack on the world. The Asgard conquered it and left it lifeless." Stated Fang Gang "We came across it two thousand years later and recolonized it, after 2000 years with no attempts to even return it is clear you loss all claim to it."

"We can never give up claims to what belonged to us and was given to us by our lord Zeus and the rest of the Lords of Kobol." Stated Spiro

"This world means nothing to you, there is no reason why you can't settle on other worlds." Stated Cain as General Leong chuckled a bit, that caused people to look at her.

"You are wrong, this world is very important to us. Not only is it the 1st world that we colonized with civilians but it will become our fortress among the stars." stated General Leong "Besides it is too important now as a rallying symbol, your attack on us and the nuclear bomb you unleashed on the planet as brought so many sides together. Sides that were not fully trusting are now trusting; you have give us a common enemy."

"You would rather fight this war?" inquired Adar as the General shook her head.

"Not really, but if I have too I will make sure your worlds burn." stated General Leong "But that isn't my call, if you agree to the terms then we will not bomb you we will not grind your worlds into dust."

"You can't talk to us that way!" yelled Priest Spiro

"Why not? You have tried to talk to us that way thinking that we would give you Valhalla for nothing and that we would just roll over is the definition of arrogance." Stated General Leong

"You don't fear the Lords of Kobol but you should they will sit in judgement of your soul when you die." stated Priest Spiro

"I am an atheist so you can threatening my soul all you want it means nothing to me because I don't believe in it." stated General Leong, it wasn't totally true. On some days, she did believe in an afterlife but not in any of the religions of Earth or any other world. Also as a member of the communist party it was a line she was suppose to say even though it was now accepted more than it would have been when she was rising in the ranks. The Colonials looked at her stunned, while Atheism was known in the colonies, no one would openly say it like she had just done.

"While I wouldn't have been as upfront as the General, her stance is the stance of the Tau'ri we will not be giving you Valhalla and we will never accept your claims to us or that world." stated Woolsey as he took a breath and prepared to make his offer to the colonials. "We demand your unconditional surrender of the 12 colonies of Kobol; you have seen what we are capable of. You have no defense against our technology our ships can destroy yours with relative ease and you have no defense against our beam technology. We have dropped a bomb on your world which all but destroyed it and we can do a lot worse. We can turn your stars into super nova's and destroy all your worlds in a single moment. You can't win this fight and all you can do is slow us down at the costs of your lives."

"We will never surrender our rights to Kobol." Said the Judge as Adar shook his head.

"We can't accept that, we will fight on and we have already begun to hurt you we have destroyed 3 of your ships." Stated Adar

"One ship and damaged two others which are in dry dock and will be ready you reenter the fight soon." corrected Doctor Woolsey, as General Leong looked at him. She wouldn't have admitted their losses but he was in charge and could do it if he pleased. "And you trade 215 ships and an entire planet for those victories. Not to mention we have only loss not counting the surprise nuclear attack on Valhalla, just over 1,750 men and women while you have loss an estimated 430,000 personal in space alone with more loss on the grounds."

"In military terms you traded over 70 ships to every damaged ship we have and over 245 men KIA for every one of ours and that isn't counting the POW we have taken." stated General Leong "Not a sustainable number on your side."

"We have a great number of ships and a great number of man and women ready to lie down their lives for the future of humanity." Stated Adar, he did not want to say that he wanted to make a deal to make peace but he was stuck with what the people would accept.

"And they will all die on mass." Countered General Leong in a tone that said she was speaking a fact as far as she was concerned.

"We would be willing to return your mining outpost of Nysa and we would even consider allowing your people to build a temple to the Lords of Kobol on Valhalla." added Daniel Jackson as he tried to find some middle ground. "With the understanding that they would be just another religion among equals not the dominate religion, not by far."

"We will rebuild the temple of Zeus and that is for sure." Stated Priest Spiro "But as for…"

"As for your leaders both military and civilians we will demand that they hand themselves over for trail for their actions in the attack on Valhalla." stated Fang Gang ignoring the statement of the Holy man.

"So you can hang us?" inquired Cain

"We would have the Nox sit in judgement of you so that it would be fair but we wouldn't hang you." said Fang Gang, not adding that they would likely use injection of maybe just a firing squad. "If we can't come to terms on a way to end this war, it may be for the best if we can settle on rules of war."

"Rules that you will not honor." said Cain "Your forces have carried out terrorist attacks across multiple worlds."

"You may consider them terrorist attacks but they targeted military and governmental targets." stated General Leong "All of them are allowed under the laws of war that we sent you, we told you that any attack on civilians with WMDs would be responded in kind with our own WMDs and that is why you loss Aquaria."

"You destroyed an entire world," said Cain

"Yes, and your point is?" inquired general Leong "Did you think we would use your level of nuclear warheads, they are rather weak on our scale. You had enough gas to kill everyone on the planet, we were lucky that we arrived in time to stop you from launching the attack. If we hadn't and you had carried out the attack your suns would have gone super nova."

"Maybe we should settle some key issues such as rules for nuclear weapons and other WMDs." Stated Woolsey, it had become clear that they had missed the chance for peace and it was now becoming a talk about the rules of war. "WMDs such as nuclear, biological and chemical can't be used on civilian populations without opening the door to a resounding attack by the other side. Military targets along with none deadly weapons are fine."

"None deadly biological weapons?" inquired Cain

"Pepper spray, tear gas and the other crowd control things like that." stated General Leong "An attack with mustard gas which you where prepare to deploy on Valhalla isn't the same as pepper spray or tear gas."

"I guess they aren't the same but seeing how you thought that Nuclear weapons are the same as Biological and Chemical weapons it is hard to see where you draw the line," stated Adar "You consider tactics we consider terrorist methods as acceptable under the rules of war."

**Meanwhile on Tauron, an example of the different fighting styles that the Colonials used compared to their Tau'ri counterparts. **The massive grass covered plain that made up the bulk of Tauron was perfect country for tanks with only a couple rolling hills, sitting up in one of the small hills which doted the land was a group of Spanish commandos. They had spent all day watching the Colonial military and people at work on a defense that seemed more in place in 1914 not 2020. They had already confused the Spanish by setting up a railroad gun in a prepared station along with other field guns, that was odd but having prepared defense points was understandable.

Now they were actually digging a trench line straight out of WW1, not only was there soldiers doing it but school age children, elderly and what looked to be church groups where coming out to help dig. They were extending the trench out following what appeared to be a preplanned line, they got reports from other teams which had watching the other colonial strongholds nearby that other groups where digging trenches.

"Are they trying to surround the city with a trench system?" inquired one of the Spanish commando as he looked down at a group of what would have been Sunday school age kids working on digging the trenches.

"They are." Confirmed the intelligence officer as he looked down at his computer tablet, he had been reading up on the Cylon War using a hack to allow him into the colonial version of the internet. It didn't take him long to find their version of Wikipedia and then all he had to do was read.

"Apparently they dug trenches along all their major cities and that allowed them to stop the Cylons." explained the officer as he turned to pad around so the commando could look at a photo. It looked like a colored photo from WW1 with men and women standing in trenches so that only their heads and weapons where above ground. They were firing at a group of Cylons moving across no man land which was covered with barbwire and pot marked by shell holes.

"And a column of tanks with artillery and air support would blow that line to kingdom come." stated the 1st commando.

"It worked for them in the last war and so they are rebuilding them thinking we will fight the same as the Cylons." Laughed the intelligence officer, trenches like the one they were digging out where pointless. "As the American's like to say, if you can see it you can destroy it and these trenches are very easy to see. Even so we better map all this out for the people back on Valhalla to look at."

**They had agreed to some things real fast, items such as that both sides would avoid shooting medics and hospital ships. **This meant that both sides had to share their symbols medics, this was harder for the Tau'ri who had three the red cross, the red crescent and the red star of David, while the colonials just used a blue Caduceus. The talks had moved from WMDs to the treatment of POWs and civilians on the battlefield.

"As for the treatment of POW" stated Leong "I have seen the reports about Senior Sargent Drovo debrief, his hand wound came from Cain here and you walked in and talked to him Mr. President."

"That shows that you were well aware of what was going on." stated Woolsey "And remember we hold thousands of your people as POWs."

"Under our laws he was a terrorist not a prisoner of war," stated the Judge

"And so I guess we should hang all those people who were part of the fleet which carried out a nuclear strike on Valhalla." stated Leong as she enjoyed watched the colonials squirm. "You should be thankful that we aren't matching what you did to your single POW to the thousands we hold. If you attempt that again you will learn the definition of retaliation."

"We know of retaliation," stated Adama as he took a breath "Basically what you are saying is that if we kill any POWs even if we consider them terrorist you will kill one of the POWs you hold in return."

"In sense you are correct, we don't have a signed treaty for the treatment of POW like we have on Earth so we have to resort to this." Stated Daniel Jackson "But I do fear that it will not be a trade one for one."

"You are correct, let's just say we were willing to trade 24 people to get our one back if he had died all 24 of them would have been placed before a firing squad." Stated Leong as the colonials eyes widened at the blood thirstiness of this woman.

"I sense that we have come to an understanding about the treatment of POW and that each side will match the others actions against those captured in uniformed arms against the other side." Stated Woolsey

"Yes, I think we understand each other," stated Adar as he decided to make another pass at making peace. "I still think we can find terms to end this war now, we only want our holy world of Kobol back…"

A death glare from the Tau'ri delegation caused him to shut up instantly.

"Valhalla, is ours and it will remain ours." Stated Woolsey

"We may have had some setbacks but in time we will learn we outnumber you and in time we will turn the tide of this civil war." stated Priest Spiro "Time is on our side."

Neither Admiral Adama, Helen Cain or President Adar didn't like the grin that cross General Leong's face at that threat.

"Time is on your side you say." restated General Leong "Well we will have to see about that."

**Two Daedalus class warship exited hyperspace flanking one of the handful of Archimedes class science, which was currently in the fleet. **The Archimedes class was about the size of a Daedalus class ship and even had two hangers only these hangers where longer making the neck of the ship much shorter. They were designed to carry out sci-fi research and aside from a handful of railguns to defend against fighters lacked any weapons. What they did have was stronger sensors and other science equipment than any other ship smaller then a battleship. They had been used in the past mostly in the operation against the Wraith over Sera as a command and control ship but now it was carrying out its scientific duties.

"Sir we are ready to begin testing." said one of the operators on the Archimedes as four captured Raptors from the fleet which had attack Valhalla took off under computer control and headed toward a point almost a 1000 miles away from the three ships. Joining them also on autopilot was an Owl, with a very special cargo in its bay. One of the Raptors stopped much closer to the three Tau'ri ships and waited while the other four moved forward to the testing zone. Once in place the four computer controlled ships moved into formation with the Owl in the center and the three Raptors around it.

"Starting test in three…two…one." Reported the operator as the captain waited for something to happen. Nothing did, he waited and he waited, he actually got on his hand held computer and checked football scores coming in live from Earth, when suddenly one of the Raptors exploded in a flash of light.

"First test was a success." reported the operator on the bridge "If the other two raptors exploded when they attempt to jump out of the time dilation field that has surrounded them then we know we can trap the colonials."

An hour later, the second raptor exploded followed another hour later by the third.

"All three raptors have been destroyed when they attempted to jump from one time rate to another." reported the engineer "It is as we figured it would be, we can't come out of hyperspace in a time dilation field."

"How much time has passed in the field?" inquired the Captain, he knew that a time dilation field generator was placed inside the owl and the field had covered the area around the three raptors.

"A couple of minutes." explained the engineer as the raptor which was located outside the field began to power up its FTL drive. It disappeared in a flash of light only to exploded into a ball of light right on the edge where the field started. "It would appear that the time dilation acts like a shield, it will keep everything in and keep everything out that is coming in by FTL."

"What about none FTL travel?" inquired the Captain

"As proven when SG1 entered the Asgard Replicator trap they can pass through under sub light controls," stated the engineer. "That is something we will have to keep an eye on when we do this, but the colonials seam to relay on their FTL for longer range transport, it shouldn't be much of a concern."

"What is our next step?" inquired the Captain

"Well General Carter is working on the placement and how much material we will need to make a black hole large enough to provide the power requirements for a time dilation field." Stated the engineer "After all that math is done, and then we move that matter to the right location and set up one of our defense satellites. It will hold the time dilation generator and with its shield, it will protect it from any colonial attack. After that we pull back and turn it on."

"And this will buy us years?" inquired the Captain

"It should." stated the engineer "There is only one major problem."

"And what is that." Inquired the Captain

"Something like this could be run remotely the Asgard tried it when they trapped the Replicators." stated the engineer "The Replicators managed to turn it around so they were stuck in a fast time rate allowing them to build their forces in what would have been a major attack if SG1 hadn't stopped them. We can't risk that happening…likely someone will have to stay with the time dilation field generator to make sure everything works as it should."

"Trap someone in colonial space for years?" inquired the Captain

"It would only be a couple of months for them, but the time apart from families would be difficult for most." Admitted the engineer "Imagine going away for 3 months and years have actually passed, all the family events, life moments and everything else a person would miss."

"But someone will have to do it." added the engineer.

**They were taking a break from the talks as each side moved to their separate areas, the Tau'ri beaming back onboard the Missouri and the Colonials falling back to a side room. **The only Tau'ri not to return to the battleship was surprising General Leong who decided to spend the time moving around the grand hall looking at the different paintings and other works, which could be found in the hall of justice for the 12 colonies. Her surprising act of staying did not go unnoticed by the Colonials.

"Why is she still here?" inquired Cain to President Adar who stood beside her by the hallway which lead back to where the government was meeting. They were waiting on responses from the different quorum members to get a sense on what they thought about the talks, they all knew it was not going to be good.

"Maybe she is trying to open a back channel, see if we reach a deal in private that we can't reach publicly yet." said Adar with hope before looking at Cain. "I can't go speak to her, because it will draw too much attention, go see if what we hope is actually possible."

"Yes, sir." confirmed Cain as she moved off toward the shorter woman in a different uniform. She mentally slapped herself remembering she was not in her colonial blues anymore and was in fact a civilian now.

"Admiral Cain, how nice of you to stop by." said Leong in a cool voice as she stopped and looked at a bronze statue of a nude man with a large lightning bolt held in one hand. He stood with one foot on top of another man, only this one was monstrous. "If I remember my Greek mythology correctly this is Zeus defeating Cronus, the lord of the Titans?"

"Yes." Confirmed Cain "Zeus defeated the titans and the Lords of Kobol ruled all of humanity from that day forward."

"How interesting, however if I remember your holy scrolls correctly the Lords of Kobol where at the point of losing the battle when Zeus used his thunderbolts and the titans had no defense against that kind of firepower." stated Leong as she amazed Cain with her knowledge of the holy scrolls. "The thing is Zeus had his lightning bolt to defeat the titans, the titans had nothing to defend themselves against the bolts. That is the situation you are in now, you have nothing that can threaten us but we could remove you in an instant."

"Then why don't you, you keep saying you are holding back but yet you haven't done anything." Stated Cain "Sounds like a bluff."

"Is what we did to your world a bluff?" countered Leong "While you are not a threat to us other powers are a threat, we need to keep how they feel about us into effect. We could crush you but then we would have to deal with the political fallout in the rest of the galaxy, so we must use a strong but not too strong of hand."

"Then make a deal, give us Kobol and be done with it." advised Cain

"Tell me, if the Cylons had demanded that you handed over your home world of Tauron at the end of your war would you do it?" inquired Leong "You wouldn't do that when your war was in a stale mate why would we give you Valhalla while we are winning."

"How…did you know I was from Tauron?" inquired Cain

"I know a lot about you, Admiral Adama who has lost a son Zak in a Viper accident, Admiral Nagata who lost a child 7 months into her pregnancy and of course President Adar who has had three mistress in the past 10 years, however he hasn't had one since becoming president must be worried about that coming out." Stated Leong as Cain looked at her stunned. "Sun Tzu says "Know the enemy and know yourself in a 100 battles you will never be in peril.""

"What?" inquired Cain

"A Quote from an ancient book on Earth called the Art of War, I was reading your version the "Way of Areas, the Spear and Shield."" stated Leong as Cain eyes widened, that book was a staple of every war college in the colonies. "I still haven't had time to read some of your other war books but I will in time. By learning everything I can about my enemies I will be better able to defeat you on the battlefield."

"By looking at artwork?" inquired Cain

"Yes, you can see what a society holds most important by looking at their art," stated Leong as she looked around the room. "Look here over half of your paintings and other works here show the Lords of Kobol, that tells me that you hold them above even your own legal system. The paintings which show the signing of key documents are not given the same attention as the ones honoring your gods. That tells me much, which while your people turn to the Lords of Kobol to grant you victory it also blinds most to the simple fact that you are outgunned."

"We will not go down easy." Stated Cain

"No, I don't believe you will but you will go down and easier than you think." stated the Tau'ri general "The board is being set and when this is done your colonies will not be the same. You were shaped by war you all fear the Clyons but you have no idea what real war is and how a real war is waged."

"We have more man we can overwhelm you." Stated Cain

"As the Americans proved against us in the Korean War at the cost of almost a million of my country man that the answer to pure numbers is pure firepower." Stated General Leong as she saw the confused look on the former admirals face, losing a million men was. "We have the firepower you do not and even so what you call a bloody war wouldn't even raise an eyebrow on Earth, you have no idea the storm that is coming and it is coming."

"You are planning to attack us, aren't you?" inquired Cain

"Here and now?" inquired Leong as Cain nodded. "No, we honor our deals not to attack during a peace conference but in the end it will not matter. We are getting what we want out of this conference."

"More war." Stated Cain as Leong shook her head.

"No, well not fully we knew that we would get that both sides are stuck in their ways. We are hemmed in because we cannot give you Valhalla and if we are too weak the people back on Earth would be upset. Same for you, you can't give up Valhalla because you see it as a holy world and you have to play to the more radical elements in your government." stated Leong "We already knew that going in."

"Then why do all this?" inquired Cain

"Well first in the slim chance we were wrong and you did give in, second to show to the rest of the powers in the galaxy that we want peace and lastly and most importantly to buy time." stated General Leong

**Well I hope you liked this chapter, now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	58. Chapter 58

**At the end of this chapter, I have written short clips of six possible stories, please read and then go and vote on my profile poll, not in a review. Thanks Wilkins75.**

**Chapter 58 Setting the Board**

President Richard Adar sat around a table in a middle of the road hotel room on Libra, the most powerful man in the colonies on paper was currently in hiding. He could not spend more than a single night in any one spot because of the worry of a Tau'ri attempt to end his life.

"The peace conference didn't go as well as we hoped." Stated Secretary Cain as she stood by the window, however the blinds where closed so she couldn't look out over the city.

"That was an understatement." confirmed an aid before turning toward the President. "The Quorum is up in arms and demanding action take place against the Tau'ri."

"Well that is part of the problem, we can't hurt them without hurting ourselves worse." stated the President as he looked down at his notes, the Battleship Missouri had left orbit peacefully a couple of hours ago with an agreement for the rules of war. "At least we know how they feel about WMDs, POWs and other issues. That may save some lives in the future. Do we have any more information on how their teleportation technology could work?"

"Not really sir." Admitted another aid "It took a while to convince some of the researchers that was what the Tau'ri are doing."

"They must be watching the news reports," laughed Cain as she remembered some of the wild crazy ideas that the news media's experts had come up with on how the Tau'ri where pulling off what they did. They ranged from such things as holographic displays to hide them coming out from cloaking which was the most believable. Other ideas where ranging from shrinking machines to the same type of magic tricks use on stage to make things appear and disappear. "The media and the public in general where trying everything to get around the simple fact that the Tau'ri have teleportation technology."

"We need a victory, a major victory," stated Adar before looking at Cain. "If I remember correctly you ordered the military to begin planning an invasion of Kobol."

"I did and it will take months to prepare to do anything on that front. With beaming I wouldn't want to risk sending a force to just hold until the main force arrives, when we go we have to go in overwhelming force." admitted Cain "We have millions of people enlisting to fight and we are bring weapons out of storage and making new ones but it takes time to prepare. We can't just throw a weapon in someone's hand and push them out on the battlefield, we need to train them, that takes months at the least to do it right."

"Luckily the Tau'ri are under the same restrictions we are." added Adar "It will take them months to mobilize and years to make ships, if we can overwhelm them before that happens we can force a peace."

"They claim that they can turn our stars into a super nova if they can do that then they could beat us in moments." stated Cain before brushing that aside. Even if they could make something that would cause it and the only thing the experts said could possibly do that is a black hole they would have no way to put it in a bomb. "Sorry for bringing that up Mr. President that has to be a bluff of some kind there is no way that can be true."

"Mr. President, we need to start planning visits to different war production centers," stated an Aid "It will look good in the news and raise people's hopes."

"I want to start with the swearing in soldiers," ordered Adar as the aid nodded, he was going to recommend starting by visiting a factory but that would work just as well.

**General Samantha Carter rubbed her chin as she worked in her own personal lab, which was located beside her office in the SGC moon base.** She worked on some of the most advanced computers in human history the only ones which surpassed hers was the ones used in the RND department on Valhalla, the Asgard research program on Earth and the SGC own computer. All of those three however had to be shared for a whole department; this was her own private computer. She sat at her work desk which was covered with multiple notebooks, unlike some of the younger members of the SGC she still liked old fashioned paper instead of using just computer tablets. She looked up from her notebook to the three flat screen monitors, which surrounded her desk.

On the one to her right was a power reading of the requirements for a time dilation field, which would engulf the 12 colonies of Kobol. On the one to her left was the a table she had made up of the mass need to create black holes of certain sizes and the power generated from black holes of different sizes. A careful balance was needed; too large of black hole could generate too much power and blow the time dilation field up. Too little and their would not be enough power to make the field. Her goal was to find a perfect balance in which the black hole would be big enough to supply enough power for the field plus supply the station which would be there with power for shields and other items but not too big. The center screen showed a map of the 12 colonies of Kobol and where the computers estimated that the black hole bomb which would make the black hole would have to go off.

"We are luckily that the three stars which the 12 colonies called home where all almost equal distance from each other," stated Carter to herself as she tapped a few commands as a sphere of blue surrounded colonial space. All four stars plus their outposts where engulfed in the area, including Nsya. "We will have to pull out of that location."

A knock at her door caused her to look up.

"Enter." said Carter as Teal'c walked into his old friend's officer. Carter smiled as she hit a small button causing the screens to lower themselves into the desk before coming around and hugging her friend. "Teal'c how are you doing?"

"I am well." answered Teal'c as he took a breath. "I have come to ask a favor of you?"

"Anything." Stated Carter

"I want to be the one who stays with the time dilation devise." Stated Teal'c as Carter blinked, not many people knew about their plan, Teal'c wasn't suppose to be one of them but he was a member of SG1.

"Teal'c we haven't decided what we are going to do about that." admitted Carter "Some want to ask for a volunteer from the research teams to do it."

"They have families," countered Teal'c

"And you don't? You're a grandfather." Countered Carter

"I have a longer life than anyone you could fine and Jaffa culture is used to having people away from their families for years at a time." explained Teal'c "I have talked it over with my son and with Bra'tak they are fine with it."

"It may not be needed, I am working on a way to make sure that it can't be switched around so that the Colonials speed up time." explained Carter as Teal'c nodded his head. "However if you want, I will put your name as an option for the higher ups to think about."

**A meeting of the highest ranking members of the Colonial Military command was gathered together at Picon Fleet Headquarters.** This was the beating heart of the Colonial Navy and Marines and while the Colonial Army had a similar set up on Tauron. This would be a Navy and Marine operation and the Army Generals in the meeting room was there so that the different branches of the military would know what was going on.

"We need to retake Nysa, we can't have a chance of launching an invasion of Kobol while the Tau'ri hold Nysa." stated Admiral Nagata to the room full of Admirals and Generals. "Nysa sits on any supply route that our army friends would have to use to supply a force on Kobol."

"Retaking that will not easy, the few raptors we have flown to Nysa have taken recon photos which show 9 Tau'ri ships including one of their battleships around the planet." Stated another Admiral "And with a part of our forces stuck in reserve in case of a Cylon attack."

"We will have to manage it, with more ships coming online as the mothball ships become combat ready." Stated Nagata as she looked toward Admiral Adama, he was in charge of the rearming of the old Cylon era ships.

"We are getting more battlestars online however the smaller warships and the support ships are still a long way off." Reported Admiral Adama

"Well the bulk of this operation will be carried out by battlestars with landing crafts and if we take some from Army units." stated Admiral Nagata as an Army general nodded his head in confirmation that the landing craft was theirs to use.

"Ma'am, I am not sure this is totally wise." admitted another Admiral "The plan is sound and if we jump right we can get a massive surprise on the Tau'ri but the price to reclaim Nysa may not be worth it."

"On the surface I admit you may be correct," stated Admiral Nagata "However besides the political boost that will come from retaking Nysa when we take it we will take any destroyed Tau'ri ships as our own. The information we gain from those captured wrecks will be key to winning this war."

The Admiral nodded his head in confirmation and understanding.

"Now, what sort of new technology do we have to fight the Tau'ri?" inquired Admiral Nagata as she turned to a civilian woman. The woman was a bombshell and would have caused every man and most woman to turn and look at her. "Doctor Jenny Oldstone what have you and Doctor Baltar been doing with the research into multiple jump drive systems?"

"As I am sure you all know whenever an FTL jump happens a deadly douse of radiation is release," stated Doctor Jenny Oldstone who was in truth a humanoid Cylon number 6. "We get around this with thick armor on our ships and having shorter range for jump drives on Civilian ships and Raptors."

Everyone nodded their head, the more distance one tried to cover in a single jump the larger the radiation release was.

"Now what we have tried to do is basically strap multiple FTL drives together and set them to go off one after another so fast that the ship would only be a single spot for two seconds." explained Jenny Oldstone "The issue is that the amount of radiation release from having enough jump drives lined together is so much that it would kill any biological behind even the thickest armor that we could put on the craft."

"So you are telling us that it is impossible?" inquired an Army General "Forgive me if I am wrong, I work in atmosphere but the larger the ship the bigger the FTL drive and the bigger the FTL drive the larger amount of radiation is released whenever a jump happens."

"That is not totally wrong." admitted Doctor Oldstone "And it is possible but it will not be a manned ship, if we forget the armor around the ship aside from a small area for the FTL computer then it is doable."

"So we can bomb the Tau'ri right away," stated Admiral Nagata as Doctor Oldstone shook her head.

"No, the computer needed will take up almost all the space inside the armored part of the vessel." explained Doctor Oldstone "Any weapon system such as a missile launcher will take up too much room and fitting a missile would also be hard because the radiation would destroy the electronic timer and launching systems."

"So it is useless?" inquired an Admiral

"No, it would be easy to fit a camera, wireless capture system and the computer systems to store the data." explained Doctor Oldstone "Isn't knowledge of your enemy movement important?"

"Yes, if it is the best we can do right now then we will use it." Stated Admiral Nagata "We still need to find a way to fit a weapon launcher on the vessel, keep working on it."

"Will do Admiral." Confirmed Doctor Oldstone

**General Leong was pleased to be back in her office in Celin, Valhalla she had reviewed the multiple books about the Colonial war fighting technics and it was rather boring.** It was overall a repeat of the same general idea of marching forward in force and facing your enemy in a pitch battle until someone breaks. It was same plan if they were on horseback or in tanks. There was no blitzkrieg or deep strike if something was out of artillery range or missile range it might was well be at peace. That plan was even carried over to space because while a Cylon ship may sit over a city on one part of a world colonial ships would sit over another city on the same world.

She turned away from the book and turned on a large video screen and began to play a documentary of a battle on Tauron during the Cylon war. It looked as if it was scifi version of World War 1, the colonials where in tan uniforms with bulletproof vests. They wore what looked like WW2 American helmets and carried what looked like a strange mix of AK style assault rifles and bolt action 50 caliber rifles. They had what looked to be an older version of their Pallas Tank, only these tanks where in trenches themselves so that only their turrets where poking up over the trench lines. There were also fixed heavy machine gun nests, concrete bunkers and field guns. Barbwire covered the ground in front of the trenches along with metal anti-tank hedgehogs and dragon teeth. Sitting about a mile and a half away sat the Cylon lines; they looked very similar to the Colonial lines.

"They copied their builder's way to fight war," said Leong with a shake of her head of the static form of warfare. As she watched the film go ahead she watched the Cylons carried out an attack on the Colonial lines, a line of Centurions marched across no man's land firing heavy cannons as they walked. They were supported by the Cylon version of tanks which looked like modified Pallas tanks. They were just as slow as their Colonial counterpart was, it was clear that the tank wasn't that effective over rough ground, one of the tanks got stuck in a large impact point and had to be abounded by the Cylon crew.

The Cylon Centurions clearly had the better aim, they should considering that they were robots but they were slow. One of the Cylons actually stopped because its leg had frozen up because it got mud between the gears. The other centurions moved forward taking fire from the Colonials, the colonials where using their anti-cylon rounds.

"Those may be an issue," stated Leong as she looked at the intelligence report about the supply of anti-cylon rounds they had captured. Each shot had about 1/8th of the explosive power of a hand grenade and could be fired from every standard rifle and pistol in the Colonial military. She turned her attention back to the screen as the Cylons began to shell the Colonial lines with their own missiles and artillery. The missiles where not as pin point as Tau'ri version and with the Colonial heavily armored positions they took the blows with ease. Even the artillery was not nothing to write home about.

The Cylons began to drop as their attack began to fail and the Cylons fell where they stood, once the attack was stopped the Colonials launched their own attack and went over the top. They moved into no man's land under their own fire and pushed on the Cylon lines. It basically a repeat of the Cylon attack and only more of the Colonials turned and ran from the Cylon fire instead of dieing where they stood.

Leong shook her head and selected a file which showed the largest tank battle in Colonial history, 108 tanks total 70 Colonial tanks vs 38 Cylon tanks. It was almost laughable considering the largest tank battle in Earth history, the Battle of Kursk where over 5,000 Soviet tanks battled against just under 3,000 Nazi tanks. She watched the video as the tanks moved so slow she actually double-checked to make sure that the video was playing at full speed. She then pulled up the data comparing the Cylon era Pallas tank to the modern version. The Cylon era tank was slightly slower but only slightly with a top speed of 28 miles an hour compared to the modern Pallas tank at 32 miles an hour. The Leopard III tank she had to play with had top speed of 77 miles an hour but they normally moved around 60 or so keeping the rest as a reserve for a burst of speed when needed.

She shook her head before looking out the large window, night had fallen hours ago and the city was alive with light. She checked her watch and decided to call it a night, she hit the stop button but the TV didn't turn off instead it switched from the video image of the colonial tank battle to regular TV from Earth. She rolled her eyes in announce as she grabbed the other remote only to stop. The TV had landed on a news program, the BBC to be acute and what she saw disturbed her.

"North Korean forces launched a series of short range missiles at a disputed island off the coast of South Korea." Stated the New Anchor in English, while it was not Leong's first language she spoke it well enough. "The South anti-missile defense shot down the slow moving missiles thanks to computer tracking assassinate from a Daedalus Class warship which was stationed in orbit over the Sea of Japan. North Korea is calling this a violence of the treaty signed by the South Koreans and all other members of the Tau'ri stating that they would not use military technology from the gate on Earth."

"North Korea…they are a problem we will have to deal with sooner or later." spat General Leong, North Korea had freaked out once they found out that they were surrounded by Tau'ri nations, which would attack them if they attacked first. "At least the other smaller weaker powers have behaved themselves on Earth."

She turned her attention back from the multiple reports she had to deal with, she happened to pick up a report on the amount of material that the fleet would have to tow into position to provide fuel to start up the black hole which would power the time dilation field. She scanned the report, it was straight forward, use tow beams that they had taken from the Asgard to tow asteroids into position. The next report was one, which showed the amount of soldiers who had enlisted for the colonial forces, the number was staggering but they had 12 worlds so as a percentage it was equal to what Earth was getting. The report also listed the amount of ships being built in their Scporia shipyard.

"We should damage that in some way before we activate the time dilation field," stated Leong as she looked at a detailed map, which showed the massive fixed defenses around the shipyard. So many ships moved around that world that sending in a cloaked vessel was not something they would advise and a massive fleet would not make it in and out that defense line unstarched. Then an evil smile crossed her face as she moved to make a call to fleet command a few floors down. It took a few minutes to explain her plan and what she wanted done and then the operation began to be put into place.

**The sound of violin music filled the air along with the clinking of glasses, Senior Sargent Drogov stood in his dress uniform in the very heart of his government, the Hall of the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky inside the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow.** Snow was falling thick on the ground outside but it was warm inside, Drogov shook his head as he wished he was back on Valhalla or better yet on the battlefield. Instead he was being used by his government as a figurehead, he had stood and waved at a mass swearing in of new recruits in Red Square a few hours ago. That was after he had his photo taken as the President himself had hung the new metal on his chest. He rubbed his neck where the rope burn was still clearly visible with his scared hand, he could have had the scar removed but decided against it he wanted to remember the knife. He took a swing of his vodka and prepared to move off to shake a few hands and repeat the same story repeatedly when a voice came from behind him.

"So they got you roped into this whole PR bull as well?" said the woman's voice as Drogov turned to see a red haired woman in an American Navy white uniform.

"Yes and who are you?" inquired Drogov

"Lieutenant Rose Ryan US Navy, I dropped the bomb that turned a world into a molten husk of a world." Stated Rose with a shake of her head. "And because the image of me and my bird went viral I came a PR tool."

"I see how long you have been doing this?" inquired Drogov

"A couple of days, I flew my bomber all over the United States, Canada and Europe before landing here a couple of hours ago." explained Ryan "I am supposed to do a photo opt with you and the President tomorrow at some war factory outside of the city."

"Yes, I remember that is planned for tomorrow," stated Drogov as he looked at the room around him with all the marble and gold on the wall. "What do you think of this place?"

"It is beautiful but I would rather be back on duty," stated Ryan "The only benefit of this PR stuff is going to places I wouldn't go normally and doing things that would cost me weeks of pay. Do you want so advise?"

"Go ahead."

"See if you can talk them into doing something you want to do." explained Ryan with a smirk of the memory. "I am a huge NFL fan and I talked them into allowing me to make an appearance at a game where my favorite team was playing."

Drugov rubbed his chin.

"I am a fan of Hockey," stated Drugov

"See if you can go to a game to raise money to fight the war." Stated Ryan "That is what I did and it turned into all the NFL teams' donating all their profits for the week toward rebuilding Valhalla and the war effort."

"I might just do that," confirmed Drugov

**Doctor Woolsey sat at a table inside the very heart of the Cylon government, the massive space station that the Cylons called their home world**. He took a drink of water as he waited for his hosts to arrive, he scanned the room. All the walls where made of stainless steel, even the table was made of the same steel, lighted panels on the ceiling and the upper part of the walls gave light to the room. Suddenly the door opened and three humanoid Cylons entered.

"Sorry for making you wait, we had issues with our council," explained the model one called Cavil.

"That is fine," said Woolsey "Your nation has done us a lot of help, waiting a couple of minutes is not an issue."

"It is our pleasure to help you defeat the people who enslaved us in the past," stated the Six with a warm smile. "And the DNA you collected for us from our ancient home world had already been put to work. We should have our first new clone child in a few months with thousands to follow, it will be busy raising all those children but there are a lot of us."

"We are happy to do so." stated Woolsey "Now I need you to do something to help us."

"We will not go to war with the Colonials, well not openly at least." Stated the eight as Woosley shook his head.

"No, we are planning to use a devise called a time diliation device which will we hope slow down time inside a bubble of space in which we will contain the Colonials." Stated Woosley as the Cylons blinked. "It is our plan to use this to slow down time inside the field so that a month inside the field would be just over a year outside the field."

"That would give you a massive advantage." stated Cavil "You would have years to build up forces to crush the colonials who were still building up."

"That is the plan and that is where we need your help." stated Woolsey as the Cylons blinked. "See one of the major part of the plan rests in the Colonials not knowing what is happening so we need you to pull your fleet away from the boarder, if the colonials see your ships moving at impossible speed it will tip them off that something is going on."

"That shouldn't be an issue." stated Cavil as the two other Cylons nodded their heads, pulling back was easy. "However wouldn't the Colonials know something is going on by watching the stars?"

Woolsey shook his head.

"It isn't like we are stopping the movement of the colonial system through the galaxy, they system will still be in the same place it is just to the Colonials time will be slowed." explained Woolsey

"If I remember my physics correctly the nearer someone is to the speed of light or a black hole their view of time slows down." stated the eight "That is what you are doing but without the black hole?""

"Actually with a black hole, we have found a way to generate power from a black hole and that is what we plan to use to power the time dilation field." stated Woolsey "We have tested it on a small scale and it will keep the Colonials contained, they can't jump out of the field."

"Wouldn't it be easier to make something that just stops their FTL drives?" inquired the six as Woolsey shook his head.

"That has been looked into but it would seam that while your system of fast then light travel is very different both use subspace and if we deployed an FTL block our own hyperspace drives would affected." Stated Woolsey, he did not add that it also effected the beaming technology. "It wouldn't stop them from working but it would limit them to such a degree that we don't feel that it is the right move."

"The only issue I have is how would this effect the our spies inside the Colonies." Stated the eight as the others looked at her. "If FTL drives can't pass through then I would imagine that any wireless transmittions would be slowed down as well?"

"Yes." confirmed Woolsey

"Then any download broadcast of a dead cylon inside the field would also be stopped and those Cylons would not rise from the dead in their new cloned bodies," stated the eight as the other Cylons shared a look.

"That is a major problem," confirmed the Six before looking at Woolsey "Would you have a way to smuggle a couple of clone bodies and some of our resurrection technology to a safe location inside the field without the Colonials knowing."

"With ease, we need to place the time dilation field in a space station protected by the black hole and a shield, it has room to fit however many cloned bodies you may need." stated Woolsey thinking that the station wouldn't need any Eagle fighters so they could put it in a hanger.

"Give us a couple of days to prepare this and alert our spies of what is going on." Stated Cavil

"That is fine we need a few more days to prepare as well," confirmed Woolsey as the two sides stood and shook hands before leaving.

**Well I hope you liked this chapter, now I would like to finish this chapter out with clips from the possible stories. **

**Please read them and then go to my profile and vote in a poll. None of these have been fully edited or are fixed so things can/will change. **

**The Black Fox 2- While on a mission, Airi daughter of Naruto and Sakura Namikaze finds herself sent to an alternate world, where her parents never got together and the man who tried to kill her as a child is married to her mother. Black Fox story cross over with official Naruto storyline.**

The light wind caused the leaves to sway in the trees around the training field as Boruto Uzumaki stood across the field from the stranger from another universe. She was his age but he knew nothing about her aside from her name Airi. He ran his blue eyes over her body scanning for anything, her combat stance was familiar but she claimed to be a Leaf ninja from an alternate universe. She wore ruby colored jacket pure snow-white shirt under it, but it still showed a some skin. Her stomach would have been visible expect for fish netting over it. She had on a short ninja dress with shorts under it. Two ninja pouches was strapped onto each leg and the handle of a knife stuck out of her right boot. Her long blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail and she had a Leaf hand band tied to her shoulder with a red band. The thing that stuck out to him was the silver vantbrace, which covered both her hands from the palm up to about a third of her the way to elbows. He could see a strange clan seal edged into the metal but judging from the vest, she was the same rank as the two teams ready to take her down. Team Moeji and Team Konohamaru where under the watchful eyes of their sensei

"So you ready to lose?" asked Boruto as he got into his own stance. "I am have the blood of two Hokage's in me and I am the best of my class."

"I was about to say the same thing to you." stated Airi as she turned to look at Boruto sensie, Konohamaru.

"You are going up against the two best teams in the Leaf village," added Sarada Uchiha

"I am not worried," stated the young woman.

"Remember this is a sparring session." stated Konohamaru as he brought his hand down.

**Naruto Underworld****-a harem story with Naruto, Sakura and Ino for sure maybe more. Never open forbidden scroll you do not know where you will end up and what you may become.**

Her whole body hurt and her head was spinning even so she felt that she was sitting in a soft padded chair of some kind. She heard voices in the distance and the shuffling sound of paper, it sounded like an office of some kind. Her eyes slowly opened, she expected to be in a hospital with Tsunade and Shuzine nearby keeping an eye on them however what she saw looked like some office. It had tan walls with a wooden desk in front of her, a plant sat by the window where sunlight was coming in. There was your standard office items on the desk, pens paper and what looked to be family photos. She slowly raised her hands into view and saw that nothing was wrong with them, no burns from the flash of flame, which had engulfed them when they opened that scroll.

"Damn you Ino," Complained Sakura as she heard a nearby office door open and the sound of high heels on wood floors walked passed her and came around to the back of the desk. At first she couldn't believe what she was seeing, it was dressed like any office worker would with a next pair of pants and a suit jacket. The undershirt was a skintight black corset that showed excessively cleavage, too much be descendant in any office she had been in. Sakura was so taken aback by the outfit she failed to notice at first the pair of thick black ram horns which came out of the side of the woman's head or the pair of bat like wings she had folded up behind her.

"Sakura Haruno, age 17 from the village hidden in the Leaves." said the creature reading off a report of some kind. Then she lifted her head and gave a full smile that showed a mouth full of sharp teeth in a warm smile. "Let's just get the hard bit out of the way, you are currently sitting in hell, the afterlife or the underworld depending on your wording and I am your ordination officer."

**Contact at Tuchanka****-** **Stargate/Mass Effect-a sequel to Contact at Kobol, the Citadel Races make contact with the Tau'ri, the inheritors of the Ancients the only race to defeat the Reapers. (Will Start after Contact of Kobol is Finished) **

The Owl transport bucked like a wild beast as it dove into the atmosphere of the nuclear wasteland of the world below them. The Tau'ri marines in full power armor had been outfitted to deal with the hostel environment below which was highly radiative. The two owls carrying the marines touched down on a flat ground in the remains of some bombed out city. The marines walked off the Owls and where instantly on their guard as the Owls took back off and began to map the city from above.

"Alright let's get moving," ordered the Colonel in charge of this mission, the team moved forward toward the largest grouping of life signs that they had on their sensors. The life sign detector reading was sent wirelessly to the heads up display inside their full visor helmet. This allowed them to scan the remains of the city for anything that their life sign detector did not pick up.

"Want to bet we are picking up some radiative pack of wolves?" inquired a member of the squad as they followed a worn path toward a half-closed entrees to what appeared to be a subway entrees.

"I am not so sure." Said a man in a thick Scottish accent, "Look at these tracks, whatever made these walked on two feet and was very big."

"Maybe it is the mutated descendants of whatever people built this place?" offered the same wise cracking marine who thought it could be wolves. "I mean no one could live in this amount of radiation without protection and judging from the city that was a while ago, so the radiation must be lower now than it was after the blast."

"True." Admitted the Colonel, suddenly alarms began going off on all their life sign detectors as figures began to pour out of the subway entrees. They were massive reptilian creatures which stood over 7 ft tall with a massive hump on its back. There were five of them all dressed in strange armor and holding strange weapons, they were yelling something in their own tongue. It would take the computer systems a couple of seconds to get a possible meaning, before the system could finish two of the figures charged straight at them as they did the translation came through.

"I am Krogran!"

**Contact of Races- ****Stargate SG1/World War Series, the race the most advanced race which has a history of slow and steady progress spreading over million of years have launched their invasion of Tosev 3, called Earth. They think they will fight knights in armor but they do not understand that humans develop fast, now instead of running into knights they meet the might of the Tau'ri.**

The conquest fleet of the Race moved at speed near half the speed of light as it crossed the massive distance between the home world of the Race and the heart of the empire which now spread across multiple worlds. The fleet was massive bigger then the fleets which had taken the 1st world new world, Rabotev 2 or Halless 1 into the empire hundreds of thousands of years ago.

After that the emperor faced one of the hardest questions ever set before the race, two worlds had been discovered both would make great additions to the empire. One was the 3rd world which orbited the star Tosev, the prod showed that there most advanced warrior wielded a sword with a shield with a painted cross on it. He would prove extremely easy for the armored fighting vehicles and machine gun wielding members of the race.

The other world orbiting the star Vantic was more advanced, this race was more like the race it had scales with eyes on stalks, which could move at will. The natives of Vantic where extremely tall double the height of a member of the race and had four legs in addition to the two arms. They where more advanced having discovered gunpowder and so they were conquered first. The fleet had gathered and conquered Vantic 5, with the only surprise being that one of their small city states had developed flint lock guns since the probe. Once the colonization fleet had arrived on Vantic the same conquest fleet had headed out toward Tosev 3 and the sword swinging primitives.

The race was confidante they now ruled four worlds and soon it would be five because how much could a people change in just over 900 local years, it took the race the most advanced civilization in the galaxy a hundreds of thousands of years to developed electronics, the Tosevites should still be riding beasts.

Specialist David Goldfard stood inside of one of early warning long-range sensors station which protected Earth. Everything seemed normal military and civilian ships coming and going.

"A normal boring day." companied the Irish man beside him "Did you see the match last night?"

"I did." Confirmed the native of London as he looked out the window at Pluto, before he could say anything alarms began going off. "What the?"

"Sir we just detected a large group of ships only a couple thousands kilometers out from our orbit." Reported another operator "They are moving so slow the computers didn't pick them up as a threat."

**Game of thrones Season 7**\- **what I want season 7 of Game of Thrones to be, will be using what information I have about the next season and from the books.**

A black banner with a three headed dragon breathing flames as red as it's body flapped from top of every ship in her fleet, the sails on the ships where lowered since the massive fleet sat in harbor. If they had been raised the sails would have shown three of the great houses of Westeros, Tryell, Martell and Greyjoys along with the black sails of house Targaryen. The ruler who commanded this massive fleet and the massive army onboard those ships sat on a cushion in her suit on the flagship, a light rain was falling over the fleet but the rain was not strong enough to hide the Long Bridge of Volantis.

"My ancestors in the free hold of Valeria made that." Stated Daenerys Targaryen "And now I am the last of the line of freehold of Valeria, the last of the blood of the Dragon."

"Yes, your grace but if I may be so bold you are young, beautiful and I am sure your line will go on." Stated her friend and close confidante Missandei, Daenerys Targaryen rightful ruler of the seven kingdoms of Westeros smiled sadly remembering the love she left behind in Daario. She turned her head toward a large flat barge, which was towed by her ships. Sitting there resting undercover from the cool rain was her three dragons. Dragons she was the blood of the dragon and she had brought three of the most powerful creatures the world had ever seen back. They where the key to her retaking her birthright, the Iron Throne of Westeros.

"Your grace, if I may interrupt." inquired a voice as Daenerys turned to see a short man with a scar across his face, he was dressed in black with a black pin which showed a hand on it.

"Yes, Lord Tyrion." Said Daenerys to her hand of the Queen.

"The Boat bring Lord Varys back onboard just left the docks, he will be here soon with news from the seven kingdoms." explained Tyrion Lannister.

"Then get everyone in here, we have to plan my retaking of the Iron throne." ordered Daenerys

**Battle Trek****-Star Trek Voyager/The Next Generation/Battlestar-takes place after the end of Star Trek Voyager instead of coming out of the Borg transwarp conduit they come out near the border of the Delta and Alpha Quadrants, in front of them lies Cylon Space and the 12 colonies of Kobol.**

Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation starship Voyager sat in her ready room with a cup of coffee in her hands and a computer pad in the other. She scanned the reports coming in from every department on the ship, each one of the had taken damage of some kind from their encounter with the Borg. To save the ship and the crew that had become her family she had made a choice, the ship was passing through the Borg transwarp conduit which would take them across the galaxy in moment. They would finally after years of being stranded in the far end of the galaxy be home but the ship was taking too much damage. She made the choice to exit the conduit before reaching Earth, Voyager had come out on the far edge of the delta quadrant. A beeping sound of the door caused her to lift her head up from the computer pad.

"Enter." ordered Janeway as a man dressed in the red uniform of Starfleet command walked into the ready room. He stood out from others on the ship because of the traditional Native American tattoo over one of his eyes. "Chakotay, how are you doing today?"

"I am well, thanks." answered her first officer as he sat down across form her. "I just came from engineering and while they are slightly behind we should have full warp power within the next three hours."

"Good." answered Janeway as she tapped a few commands into the computer pad. "Have you seen Seven's estimate of where we are?"

"I have." Admitted Chakotay with a slight laugh "I had to push her to make that report, she didn't want to guess where we are but some of the long range sensors are still being repaired. So she may be off by as much as 10%."

"Still according to this we are only 18 months away from the edge of Federation space." stated Janeway "Not bad at all."

"We will still be coming across unknown space, the Cardassian Union separated this part of space from the Federation so no long range missions took place." Stated Chakotay "Still, we are a lot closer then we were. Long range scanners did pick up a cluster of four stars which are extremely close and we are picking up faint radio broadcasts, might be worth taking a look."

"Once we get everything back online and make contact with Starfleet we will check out the source of those singles." stated Janeway "We are explores even though our main goal is to get back home."

**Now that you I would have I would ask that you all go to my poll and vote. Now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	59. Chapter 59

**Chapter 59 Turning of the Key**

It had taken a couple of days but the work was nearly done, the time dilation device which would be the heart of the operation had been built. The defense station which will contain the dives was all assembled and ready for transport on a Hadrian class transport to the position near the center of colonial space where it would be put together in a couple of hours. The hardest part of the operation was the movement of material into the correct position so that when the black hole bomb went off there would be enough matter for the black hole to consume to generate power and yet not too much to get it going out of control. Once the amount of material was decided, the Tau'ri had to get it and move it.

Four of the six Missouri class battleships moved around Nysa, with the only two remaining ships being assigned to defend Valhalla and Earth. Other smaller ships and even 6 of the 7 Hadrian class transports which where the size of battleships but much simpler to make and lacking weapons moved around the captured micro planet. They moved mostly on the dark side of the world away from Colonial space and any raptor which happened to jump within visual or Dradis range of the operation didn't last long enough to send a message or escape. Eagles and cloaked owls made sure of that. The six battleships and the smaller Daedalus class ships moved in a highly organized and yet simple pattern as they used their Asgard beams to cut into the surface of the captured colonial micro planet. The beams cut deep and while a slow process it was steady as large chunks came off the planet. The largest of these chucks where the size of the US state of Maine.

Once freed one of the Hadrian class ships would move in and with their powerful tractor beams they would tow the newly made asteroid away before entering hyperspace for the short journey to the assembly point which was defended by more Daedalus class ships. There they would release their tow beams and the asteroid would sit in space waiting for the moment to come.

"Ma'am we have communication coming in from Valhalla." reported an officer on the Chinese battleship Long Chun.

"Very well." Said the commander of the battleship which name translated into Spring Dragon, Senior Colonel Sung as she hit a button on her command chair and the image of General Leong appeared on the small built in screen.

"General." said the senior Colonel as she saluted the senior officer.

"Colonel, be aware we have gotten word from the Cylons that the colonials are gathering a fleet to retake Nysa, they are expected to launch their assault within the next six hours." stated General Leong

"Well Ma'am we will be gone before they arrive." Stated Senior Colonel Sung

"What is the status of the operation?" inquired General Loeng

"Ma'am we are currently running 10 minutes behind planned schedule. One of ships had an issue with one of their systems and they had to stop to make some quick onboard repairs." explained Colonel. Sung as General Loeng nodded her head, both of them it was better then what either of them could have hoped for, something always went wrong and ten minutes in an operation like this wasn't anything to be concerned about.

"Good, will you have enough material to carry out the other operation?" inquired General Loeng

"Ma'am we already have one being prepared, once everything is done here we will carry out the operation and pull back to Valhalla." stated Colonel Sung with a slight smile. She had been the commander of the Sun Tzu which had discovered the planet in the first place and that had earned her command of the 1st battleship that her nation had built. "Ma'am have they selected the crew that will stay behind?"

"They are being informed now and a general pull out of all forces is underway." Stated General Loeng "Is there anything else?"

"No General." Confirmed Colonel Sung

"Good, inform me when you launch the operation against Scorpia." ordered General, the other Chinese woman nodded her head as the connection was broken.

**Doctor Baltar stood beside Doctor Jenny Oldstone in the flight pod of an old Cylon war era battlestar. The flight pod was closed allowing them to move around without the use of a space suit. **Hanging from the two massive cranes built into the ceiling of the pod to help clear away wrecks lied their experimental probe. It looked like a long cigar with a rocket engine poking out of the back.

"This should work." Stated Baltar as he ran his hands down the side of the probe, aside from the armored nose where the camera and wireless traffic capture equipment the whole body of the ship was coved in sheet metal. It was just thin enough to protect it from micro meteors but nothing more.

"How long will it take to get to Kobol?" inquired the Commander of the battlestar

"45 minutes to get there and it will stay for fifteen minutes with proximity alarms if anything gets close it will jump back." stated Doctor Oldstone "With luck it will be back here in just under two hours but we will not be able to download any photos or wireless communication from the ship until an hour after that. We have to wait for the radiation to dissipate."

"So two hours, let's get start." stated the Commander, they all moved out of flight pod and into the hanger full of high tech equipment not normally found in a Cylon war era battlestar. They had chosen to use the older ship so that it would not draw the attention of the Tau'ri. Slowly the flight pod extended and the gravity plates which gave a slight sense of gravity even while the pod was open to space where turned off. When that happened the cranes released the probe and its small engine propelled it forward. It took a while but it cleared the ship and once it did the multiple FTL drives began to spin up. The whole system was computer controlled and so the crew in the CIC was surprised themselves when the probe jumped away.

It worked perfectly as it carried out jump after jump with only 90 seconds between jumps, then it reached it's destination. I high outer orbit of the Kobol system, it was so far out that it took a moment for the Tau'ri sensors to pick it up and Eagles moved quickly on an intercept course. As they did the high power camera on the probe began taking photos of Kobol as the wireless capture systems began to take in everything it could. Once the onboard computer detected that a missile tracking lock had happened the FTL fired off again and it began its journey back to the launching ship having stayed in the Kobol system for a grand total of 5 minutes. The CIC broke out into cheers when the probe returned and with a confirmation wireless broadcast that it had photo data onboard. Now they had to wait the hour until the radiation dissipate until it was safe to remove the information on the computer.

**A heavy semi-truck rumbled down the road on Caprica, sitting on its reinforced trailer where two Pallas tanks. **Since the distance was short and they wanted to unload quickly the five men crew of the colonial tank sat inside as they moved down the highway. The idea was simple what could possibly hurt them inside the heavy armored tank. In the first tank, the driver was leaning back in his seat beside the haul gunner/mechanic back behind them in the turret the commander, the gunner for the main gun and the secondary gunner for the rotating cannon on top sat back playing cards. In the second tank a similar thing was going on.

Outside the driver who was a member of the colonial army sat beside an armed solider with a patrol vehicle out front and another one behind. No one expected any trouble as they neared the bridge that they had to cross in order to reach the other base. The bridge was designed to take a nuclear strike within 5 miles and still be able to cross so there was no concern of it breaking under the heavy weight of the vehicles.

Inside the cab, none of them heard the shot, but the driver felt the sniper bullet slam into his chest. Seconds later, his passenger had a similar fate as his head exploded from a sniper round. He moved to put on the breaks when suddenly the tire on one side blew out, likely from another sniper round. The heavy truck jackknifed and slammed into the barrier that separated the road from the empty void of air.

Almost a quarter of a mile away Russian Spetsnaz sniper Senior Sargent Tatianna lied in the tall grass. She watched the truck driver for a moment to make sure he was dead before taking out the front wheel on one side. Another sniper in their four men sniper team had taken out the other rider.

"Look at it go." Said her spotter another woman as the truck carrying the two heavy tanks went over the edge and because an object in motion in this case the truck with the tanks in tow like to stay in motion it went over the side. The Russians watched as it fell a good fifty feet before crashing into the river below. The river must have been a lot deeper then they knew because it swallowed all the vehicles totally.

"I hate to be the men in the tanks." Said Tatianna as a figured popped up in the water. "Looks like one had a hatch open and got out."

"So it…" started her spotter before the other sniper in their group shot the swimming men ending his life. "Well that wasn't fair."

"Whoever said life was fair was lying, most of all in war." Counter Tatianna as they moved out of their sniping post and head back into the woods. They moved fast, the Colonials had been late and they did not want to miss their ride. They headed toward the clearing just in time to see the grass move as a cloaked Owl came in for a landing, de cloaking as it did. The Union Jack was painted on the side of the bird but it did not matter as the back ramp opened and the Russian Spetsnaz team rushed onboard.

"This everyone!" yelled one of the crew in a clearly English accent.

"Yes." Answered their commander as the back ramp closed up and the Owl cloaked before taking back off.

"Why are we running away?" complained one of the Spetsnaz "We could have stayed."

"They couldn't get the word to you, too big of a risk of the colonials intercepting the communication. They are trying but so far nothing, the brass is going to set up a time dilation device which will slow down time across the entire 12 colonies." Stated the cargo operator as the Russians looked at him. "We are pulling back so none of us get caught. Then we will have years to prepare to pay them back for what they did to Valhalla, while they have months."

**The former SG1 members along with the current ones gathered together in the conference room which overlooked the Stargate. **The wooden desk was the same one, which had been in the first SGC on Earth and had been moved to the new moon base for a sense of history.

"You know Teal'c you can back out of this if you want?" inquired Jack as he looked at his old friend. "You are just going in case of an attack and that is highly unlikely."

"Still if this helps win your war I will do it." confirmed Teal'c as Jack looked at Sam, hoping she would find a way to talk Teal'c out of going. The governments of the world had decided that one person to protect the time dilation devise was not enough so a team of 11 people had been asked to volunteered, four of the eleven members of the team where engineers or scientist who would monitor the field and the black hole. Two were going as operators for the intelligence gathering tools, they had a medic to take care of anything, an owl pilot while the others where their to guard the station. Teal'c would make the 12th member of the crew and if he went, would be in charge of defending the station. They had increased the security because they were loading up Cylon resurrection pods into one of the hangers and while they did not think the Cylons would do something they did not want to take the risk.

"Teal'c you understand that while it may only seem like 3 months to you 4 and a half years will have passed outside." stated Carter, that was main reason it was so hard to get volunteers. For the selection process, they had made a pool of people with the skills they wanted, editing out people who had families and then asked them to volunteer for this mission. Most refused not wanting to be separated from friends for so long but they had gotten enough to make a crew. The 2 million dollars they got each month on duty for a grand total of 6 million dollars plus they would get their originally pay for the entire four and half years was the cheery on top for those who signed on for the mission.

"I understand my friends but this is where I can do the most good." Stated Teal'c "My family understands, it is part of our culture to have long deployments. The Goa'uld cared little about the families of those they ruled over."

"True." admitted Daniel. Jack shook his head before pulling out a long bottle of whisky and four glasses.

"How about one last drink before you go?" inquired O'Neill

"Indeed." confirmed Teal'c

**On the forest of Sagittarian a pair of Gurkhas moved toward a meeting with Todd, the Wraith had set up his base in a cave which sat outside of a small clearing surrounded on all sides by either rocks or trees. **The two Gurkhas stopped outside the cave and looked at their life sign detectors, it showed the orange dot of a wraith and a green dots. The green dots meant they were humans but they didn't have the friendly id chip on their person. If they had they would have known two Tau'ri where in their instead of two colonials. The orange dot moved toward the door and waited.

"Todd, we know you are there," said one of the Gurkhas as the Wraith came out of his cave, he had a life sign detector too. The wraith smiled as he looked at the two Tau'ri solders, neither side moved to raise a weapon but both were ready to.

"What do I owe this honor to?" inquired Todd "Is the war over already?"

"No, but we are going to trap the colonials in a time dilation field, so you have a choice." said the Gurkha officer. "Command has told me that you are welcomed to come back and they will take you back to your home in Pegasus and the same deal will be kept or you can stay here and follow the same rules we have given you earlier."

"Interesting." stated Todd as he placed a hand on his chin "I can either go home and read my books while enjoying some wine or I can stay here and have some fun terrorizing colonial soldiers. I think I will stay."

"That is what we thought, you will on your own for three months or so," stated the Gurkha as Todd thought about it for a moment.

"I am good on food but I could use back up recharger for my equipment. I have the equipment to recharge them but if the Colonials should find this one I may need another," stated Todd

"We thought you would say that," said the Gurkha as he nodded toward his teammate who unstrapped his backpack and walked forward. He handed the pack over; it was full of equipment not only a single recharge kit but two of them plus additional wraith weapons. There was only a single object that he did not know; it was a pad of some kind. He lifted it up as the two Tau'ri grinned.

"Put your hand on the screen." Ordered the Gurkha as Todd did what he was told. Moments later a shadow fell over him, their hovering over his head as quiet as a ghost was a wraith dart. "The RND on Valhalla had been studying some of your stuff and modified this one for your personal use while you are in the colonies. It does not have FTL or even enough power to leave the atmosphere but it does have cloaking. The high command didn't want you to be pinned down to a single location on this world."

"You have me cloaking, ancient cloaking?" inquired Todd amazed that they would do something so foolish.

"No, it has a Goa'uld cloak, not as good and we can track it." explained the Gurkha as Todd nodded, that made more sense. "Also it is set with a life sign detector so that if any human does get near without you it will self-destruct, so make sure it isn't found."

"I know the place for it." said Todd with no FTL or space flight he was stuck on this world, well unless he found a colonial FTL system but he was having fun down here, he had no reason to run. The Tau'ri where keeping their word and he would keep his. "I will put this too good work, I will terrorize the colonials while you build up."

"That is the plan." confirmed the Gurkha as the Owl which had been carrying the Dart on special hooks to it's belly lowered it to the ground. "Good luck, give the colonial hell."

**Colonial intelligence officers looked over the images which was showing the images from the probe which had gone to Kobol and returned. **The powerful high definition printer was printing out massive table size photos of the images for the teams to study.

"I don't see that many warships in orbit." Stated an officer "But there is a lot more fighters in orbit."

"Where is their fleet?" inquired another officer

"Unknown, but have you seen all the movement on the ground?" stated another officer as he looked at the images from the surface. It was hard to tell but going off the old images which dated back to before the start of the war the difference was clear. Large areas had been cleared and buildings where going up. Tanks and other armored vehicles sat in vehicle lots or moved around the growing base, since the images where stills they could not tell how fast they were moving. They saw multiple airfields going up, factories as well and across it all roads and other civilian buildings where going on. "They have at least double their ground forces in this area, maybe even increased it by three times. I see more armor then I have ever seen in one place."

"I have their shipyard." Stated a young officer as the team rushed over to the photo, it showed large bays cut deep into the soil of Kobol. They had been lucky there was no cloud cover so they got a good view of the yard, what they saw concerned them. Last time there was only 7 bays with two more being built. Now there was 14 totally finished with what looked to be 28 other bays being built in the surrounding area. All fourteen bays that where finished had ships in it.

"Look, that seems to be the damaged battlestar." stated one of the analyst.

"Carrier, the Tau'ri have two different types a battleship and a carrier." corrected the senior aid. "That looks to be another carrier beside it and that seems to be a finished battleship beside it."

"Are those grandstands?" inquired another analyst as he pointed toward a series of structure around the finished battleship.

"Looks to be, so that ship may soon enter the fight." stated another photo analyst "And the others are being constructed are in different stages of production so it is hard to tell if they are more battleships or carriers."

"They do look a lot like," said the junior analyst as he looked at a photo of a Tau'ri carrier and Battleship. They looked to be the same only the carrier's flight pods where longer along the side then on a battleship.

"Ok, we need to send another probe in a day or two so that we can see how much progress is being done on those ships." stated the senior analyst "That should give us a general time table on their ship building capabilities."

**A Colonial task group of 49 battlestars along with an equal number of support ships jumped into combat positions and instantly began launching vipers and raptors. **The guns on the ships where raised into position each armed with nuclear tipped shells, rows of nuclear tipped missiles rose into positon and ready to fire however nothing was there. There was no Tau'ri vessels in the area, no battleships, no cruisers not even a fighter the Dradis screen was empty.

"Where are they?" asked the commander of the flag ship of task group

"Better question is where is Nysa." countered the Admiral in charge of the entire group. That is when the commander noticed that aside from a small asteroid nothing there was nothing in the sky. The entire micro planet was gone.

"Did they cloak the entire planet?" inquired the commander before pointing toward a small dot on the Dradis which showed a tiny asteroid. "All but one part of it?"

"Send in the marines, but slowly we don't want them crashing into a cloaked rock." Ordered the Admiral he was not going to send his ships into a Tau'ri trap.

"Sir." Said an aid as he snapped to attention beside the admiral "report from command, the Cylon fleet has pulled back, all of them they are no longer within dradis range."

"First the Tau'ri disappear and now the Cylons? What is going on?" inquired the Admiral

The raptors moved in, they had expected to have to come in under fire but now there was almost nothing for them to land on. As they neared the tinny asteroid a building came into view, it was Nysa military base. They reported this back and got permission to carry out a landing on the tiny rock. The first raptor touched down as the marines moved out in their combat space suits only to find that just there was no one shooting at them. They headed toward the hanger only to find that the Tau'ri had started to modify it only to stop, beams had been cut into and walls had been knocked down but they had stopped and gutted everything. The point man of the colonial marines stopped and shinned his light on a banner, which was hanging from the ceiling with attachments to the floor.

"You can have this back, we are done with it." Read the marine outload as he reported it back to his squad who reported it to the battlestars.

"Alright, if the Tau'ri are gone let's get this place up and working again." ordered the squad leader "Start by taking down that stupid banner."

"Yes, sir." Confirmed a young marine as he moved forward to where the banner was being held to the floor by a bolt driven into the floor. A simple J hook held the banner tight and it took only seconds to undo it, he failed to see the micro trip wire on the J hook and before he knew what happened the entire base, in fact the entire asteroid was effulged in a nuclear fireball turning it into dust.

**Hyperspace was ripped apart as the Tau'ri battleship the Chinese Sung Long came out of the subspace just outside of a colonial star system. **At once alarms began going off on the three colonial worlds of Libran, Sagittarian and Scorpia. The Chinese battleship was closer to Scorpia and because of this the target became clear, the Scorpia ship yards. The Scorpia ship yard was the largest single shipyard in the colonies, the massive complex built both civilian and military ships and it was so massive that not only was it visible from the surface of Scorpia even in the middle of the day but it covered almost a quarter of the sky. Since the shipyard was so important it was the second most heavily defended location in the colonies with the only place with more defenses was around Caprica and Gemmon. The only reasons why that was more defended was because Caprica was the capital world and the fact that Gemmon and Caprica orbited each other so close that a common joke was that one of the planets was actually a moon, the world which was the moon depended on if someone from Caprica or Gemmon was telling it.

"So the Tau'ri have finally decided to try their luck against our guns." stated the Commander of the Scorpia shipyard as he looked up at the Dradis screen, which showed him up to the second location of the Tau'ri ship as it powered straight toward the very teeth of the Colonial defense line. Suddenly the battleship made a sharp turn away from the defense line, it powered away at high speed away from the defenses and head out of the system.

"What the?" inquired the Commander "Why are they running away?"

Alarms began going off as the Dradis operator stood up.

"We have a cloaked ship heading toward us." Stated the operator as the commander grinned. The Colonial RND had figured out a way to detect large cloaked ships by the small pieced of space junk, which bounced off the sides of the ship.

"Fire on it." ordered the commander as the massive fixed defense guns opened up on the cloak ship. The shells found their mark but instead of striking the metal haul of a Tau'ri ship it strike solid rock.

Onboard the Sun Long the Chinese Colonel shook her head, this was the General's plan and so far it was working perfectly.

"Drop the cloak," ordered the Colonel

Space shimmered as the cloak disengaged and reveled to the colonials what was flying toward them. It was not a ship it was a giant asteroid. The asteroid was the size of the US state of Maine and due to the Battleship pulling it first through hyperspace and then through regular space it was moving at high speed straight toward the shipyards.

"It's an asteroid!" yelled the Dradis operator as the massive guns of the defenses opened up on the asteroid which kept moving forward heading straight through the colonial defenses. The tracking path of the rock would allow it to strike the colonial shipyard and skim past the atmosphere of planet without striking the planet itself.

"Fire everything we have!" ordered the commander "Use nukes."

It did not take long for the orders to reach the multiple defense stations as the multiple blinding flashes of light.

Onboard the Long Chun the progress of the asteroid showed that the colonials were slowing down the asteroid and if they kept the fire up the amount of damage done would be a lot but not the crippling blow because the asteroid would only brush the outer edge of the shipyard.

"Alright it's time." Ordered Senior Colonel Sung as she pressed a button on her command pad and a single was sent out to the little surprise, which had been placed inside the heart of the asteroid.

A blinding flash of light filled space as the dozens of Mark IX nuclear warheads that had been placed inside the heart of the asteroid went off. The force of the detentions caused the asteroid to break apart but this was all part of the plan. The force of the blasts sent thousands of asteroids as large as SUVs flying straight into the heart of the shipyard. Each of the asteroids acted like a shotgun pellet, by themselves it wasn't that deadly but there was just so many asteroids flying around it caused a massive amount of damage.

It had the same effect as a shotgun loaded with bird shot had compared to a shotgun with a slug round. Instead of a single area of total destruction, there was countless areas of heavy destruction. The SUV size asteroids slammed into the sides of the battlestars sitting in the shipyard, since the battlestars had heavy armored any asteroids, which hit them, did not cause a lot of damage but a lot of the shipyard was not armored. The asteroids smashed into equipment and the construction pods breaking them open, solar panels which were used to power small moveable construction buildings where smashed along with the buildings. The half-finished battlestars took heavy damage as the asteroids ripped through the unarmored side, the more finished battlestars including the nearby Hercules, the first of the Hercules class battlestar only took minor damaged because of the heavy armor.

"Well that looks like a job well done." Stated Senior Colonel Sung as she and her second officer looked at the damage done to the colonial main shipyard. "General Leong had a very impressive idea, instead of risking a ship send in an asteroid, no real risk to us. The only issue is that it isn't totally destroyed and some of the more finished ships will be able to fight soon enough."

"Still that will take them some time to fix and time is on our side." Added the second officer as Colonel Sung looked at her watch.

"We have one hour to leave colonial space, lets rejoin the fleet and head back to Valhalla." ordered Sung as a hyperspace window opened and the ship disappeared from colonial space.

**An hour later, Teal'c stood beside one of the window on the Kusanagi class defense station into the field of asteroids that would be the fuel for the black hole, which would generate the needed power. **they had gone with the largest class A station with an ancient beam cannon sat in the rotating center which allowed it to move to fire in any direction it needed, they also had Asgard beam weapons and teleports. The two hangers would normally hold Eagle fighters but now was split one holding three owls and the other holding the Cylon resurrection center complete with clone bodies for each of their spies inside the colonies.

"Sir, we are ready." Said an young corporal, Teal'c could hear the voice of the young man crack a bit he had heard that before talking to young Jaffa who looked up to him. "Shall I tell the control room to detonate the black hole bomb?"

Teal'c simply nodded as the Corporal touched his radio, moments later their was a duel flash in the distance among the massive group of asteroids. At first, nothing happened until the asteroids began to move and the beginning of a small black hole started to become visible. Teal'c knew that he was not actually seeing anything the black hole was sucking in all the light and what he saw was actually the lack of light even so a chill went down the freedom fighter's spin as the black hole grew and the satellite began to draw extra power from it. Within a few moments the radio on the young corporal's collar spoke.

"Sir they have just started the time dilation devise." reported the Corporal as he paused for a moment. "Everything is green and all the markers confirmed the field is up and running, we have the Colonials trapped now."

"Good, now we wait." confirmed Teal'c wondering how much time had already passed on the outside.

**Well I hope you liked this chapter and now the time dilation field is up and running. Now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	60. Chapter 60

**The Next 2 or 3 chapters will take place during the time dilation, it is a basically a time skip but I still need/want to show you key events so they chapter will be more broken up then normal. I will try to make it as smooth as possible.**

**Chapter 60 Building Up Part 1 Taur'i**

**16 days since activation of Time Dilation**

General Jack O'Neill along with the other high officers in the member of the Tau'ri military all gathered together in Supreme Military Headquarters located underground just outside of Istanbul Turkey. It had been just over two weeks since the time dilation field had been activated and now the Colonial forces were trapped inside a bubble of time, the Colonials had 3 months to prepare while they had years. The public was made aware of it which gave people a sense of calm even as they armed themselves for war. It hadn't like the people had forgotten their where multiple locations on Earth and Valhalla where a countdown clock to the deactivation of the time dilation field were visible to the public.

Jack looked down at his computer pad deciding to kill some time as they waited for General Leong to arrive to make her proposal. He clicked out of the secured wireless network and double-checked the news. The current headline was the special election results coming in from Langara, the home world of Jonas Quinn, they where currently voting to decide if they wanted to join the Tau'ri alliance. For this to happen three fourth of the population over the age of 18 would be required to vote yes. Polling had placed it as a strong possibly but polling had been wrong in the past but it was currently looking like in this case they were correct. Over 87% of the voting districts had reported and the current standing was 83% in favor of joining the Tau'ri with 17% against.

"Looks like Langara will be becoming a Tau'ri world." said Jack to his Russian counterpart.

"That is both a good thing and a bad thing, their population is just over 2 billion which will boost our numbers compared to the Colonials but their technology is currently behind ours and it will take time to bring their world up to ours." stated the Russian General.

"All true but then again we are still trying to do that." countered the French Admiral "We had so much technology dumped on us when we got the Asgard core and what we have learned from the Ancients, it will take decades to fully integrate all the technology on Earth."

"We are doing it on Valhalla." Countered the Russian

"Valhalla, had nothing man made that we had to work around." countered a German Colonel in the engineering core. "It is easier to put something in when you have a blank slate. If you need an example look at how much trouble our larger cities are having in integrating the new systems."

"Yes, that is a headache." admitted Jack as he clicked the computer pad again and scrolled down the news page. There was multiple news reports about all massive projects that were moving forward using the new technologies from the gate. Along with building up a united military force to fight the colonials they were in the process putting into place key projects that had been in development for years in secret. There were teams drilling holes into the super volcanos around the world, they would be tapped for power like the one the Ancients had done in the Pegasus galaxy. There was projects cleaning up all the mistakes humans had done in the past, using radiation clean up methods like they used on Valhalla the area of Chernobyl and Fukushima were in the process of being cleaned up.

Jack lifted his head up from the computer pad as General Leong entered the room. They did not mess with saluting each other, there was work that needed to get done.

"Generals, Admirals allow me to introduce you to the being of our planned operation for defeating the 12 colones of Kobol once and for all." started General Leong "Operation Ragnarok, the invasion of the 12 colonies of Kobol. Now this operation is made of many smaller operations but in general the plan I have for you is nothing short then the largest single operation in human history, this will make operation overlord the invasion of Europe in WW2 look tiny. We are talking nothing short of the complete surrender of the 12 colonies of Kobol and the only way to do that is a ground invasion."

"A ground invasion." stated a Turkish General "Why not just blast them from orbit and be done with it."

"It is the same general reason why bombing people from the air will not end a war, you need soldiers on the ground to show the enemy that they can't win." explained General Leong. "Now we can't take over all the worlds they have, we don't have the resources to hold them all. If we can hold one of their key worlds we will show them that they can't win. Right now they believe that they will win because their Lords of Kobol will save them we must show them how wrong they are."

"Are you talking about taking over Caprica and holding it?" inquired a British Admiral "That would strike me as something out of the past where the goal was to just take over an enemies capital city."

"No, while a decent choice Caprica is too close to Gemmon, we would have to take both worlds in order to stop mutual support." explained General Leong "The Colonials are not used to the way we fight and most of all even in the darkest days of the Cylon war they never loss a world, not totally. When we do that will be a blow to their spirit that along with the destruction of key targets on other worlds we will force them to their knees without totally destroying them."

"And how does your plan accomplish this?" inquired Jack as General Leong spent the next 3 hours explaining her propose planed invasion including the target planet.

**4 months after time dilation**

The President of the United States walked down long walkway toward the podium inside the United Nations building in New York City. There was of as yet no official meeting hall for the Tau'ri assembly one was currently being planned to be built on a floating city ship similar to Atlantis that would journey around Earth but that was years away so the UN was being used. Since a majority of the UN were members either of the Tau'ri or on track to be ones in the future no one really complained. For this, the seal of the UN which stood behind the podium had been taken down and replaced with the seal of the Tau'ri.

Everyone stood at attention and clapped as he moved down the walkway, shaking hands as he went. Finally, he reached the podium and shook hands with the President of South Africa who was acting head of the Tau'ri general assembly. He served the same purpose as the speaker of the house would have in the United States only he was more important because their was no senate. The only body which came close to was the governing body of the 8 most powerful nations who served more as a presidential cabinet. Standing in the front row of the hall were resprestenives form Langara lead by Jonas Quinn.

"Ladies, Gentlemen." Started the President as the hall fell silient "We have come together today for an important day in the history of not Earth but for all of the galaxy. Months ago the people of Langara in a fair and free election voted 88% in favor to join our alliance. This would be the first world to join the alliance that was not settled recently by people from Earth and it will be a model for other worlds. We have already have a long history with the people of Langara we have spilled blood together on the battlefields against the Goa'uld and the Ori. Their hero Jonas Quinn served with great honor and distinction with SG1 saving not only his world but ours. They have asked to join us as full members in this alliance of equals; I put it toward you to honor the wishes of their people."

With that the process began, a 3/4th majority of the member nations of the Tau'ri where needed to allow full membership into the alliance. On the surface, it seemed like a no brainer, why wouldn't they allow them entry into the alliance, however there were some major concerns. First was the technology gap between the Lagara people and the Tau'ri, the most advance technology level was only around the early 1980s and bring them up to date was going to be a task. This was also a concern for Langara's they didn't want Tau'ri complies coming in and corning the market and crushing the smaller less advanced local companies. To prevent this a band stopping Tau'ri business from buying Lagara companies for 10 years. The other major concern was the same issue that the Colonials had with the Tau'ri, religion.

It was not the religions native to Lagara that was an issue of concern, most of them had to do with worshiping of ancestors or a great guiding spirit. The concern was the small group of Langara which had adopted the Religion of the Ori when Lagara was under occupation. Freedom of Religion was generated both on Langara and the members of the Tau'ri nations but it raised concerns.

In the end, it did not matter because of the 110 current members of the Tau'ri not a single one voted against the allowance of Lagara. The other nations of Earth who were not member of the Tau'ri where for the most part present for the vote but since they hadn't been admitted themselves for multiple different reasons, mostly because they didn't have a stable government for the required number of years or haven't changed their laws to meet the Tau'ri standards.

With the vote casts the President of the United States the acting head of the Tau'ri alliance moved to a long table which had been set up before hand and with Jonas Quinn and other leaders from Langara as they signed the formal documents that admitted Lagara and all 2 billion plus of her citizens into the Tau'ri alliance. With that done the Tau'ri alliance now spread over three worlds, Earth, Lagara and Valhalla, Mars and Venus where still being Terraformed and wouldn't be ready for settlement for another 18 months when that happened it would raise them up to 5 worlds.

**11 and a half months after Time Dilation**

Colonel Jack O'Neill was dressed in his full dress uniform as he walked around the half-finished park, the park was the former site of a shipping yard which had nearest to the epicenter of the nuclear blast which had started the whole war. Now a memorial park was in the process of being built on the site, a sense of quiet and stillness filled the air around the park, the only place that seemed to come close to him at least was the Vietnam War memorial in Washington DC. It was almost as if the rest of the city, which was growing fast do to the influx of new soldiers and civilians. Over the past year the site had changed, the concreate had been removed along with the radioactive soil using Asgard technology. Now grass, trees and brick paths moved around the park. The only visible signs of the destruction were the two twisted and melted remains of train locomotives which sat in the center of the park along with the silver leaf tree that the Nox had donated.

Fall was coming and the maples and other trees where losing their leaves, only the evergreens and other pine trees would stay green during the winter. The trees had been transplanted from different parts of Earth and Langara to make the park a true sign of unity. While the trees and other bushes were in place not everything was finished in the park.

Slabs of concrete where ready for the massive blocks of marble which would surround the park in a circle wall which openings for walkers to pass through. Cut deep into the white marble would be the names, ages of everyone who died in the nuclear strike. There was a slight debate about if they should put their nationality but that was dropped, they were all Tau'ri. There would be spots for seven statues to be put up based on famous photos taken during the attack along with a church/temple so that people could come and pray. Of the seven statues slots only two had been selected so far, the famous one of the American and Chinese Paratroopers raising the Tau'ri flag which had fallen at Disney World Valhalla and the image of a German tanker holding a bloody injured little girl in his arms holding her close as she let out a scream. Those statues and the others that were still being debated where still a long way from being put into place.

Jack kept walking around the path, which the wall would someday be, as he moved into an area where a statue would stand in the future he got a straight view of the alien tree of remembrance that the Nox had given them. The tree would react to sounds by changing its color, it was beautiful how it would change with music however right now it was pure silver and white meaning it was quiet. The only people Jack could see down there was the honor guard, which now guarded both the tree and the graveyard that it stood for.

The guard was a multinational team and severed the same duty as the honor guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier. All of the men and women in the honor guard wore the same dress uniform that had been adopted solely for them and lacked any national identifier. Here there was no Chinese, no American, no Russian, no anything, here everyone was Tau'ri.

Jack kept walking as he neared the lake shore the sound of distance booms filled the air, Jack turned to see a flight of Eagle fighters flying over the lake but those military aircraft wasn't the source of the booms. In the distance across the lake fireworks where going off across the lake. Jack could see the firework show going off across the narrow lake at Walt Disney world Valhalla. That like everything else had been rebuilt and was expending because of the growing population of Valhalla.

Jack closed his eyes for a moment and he could still see the flash, he had been lucky his daughter had a soccer game that day and the entire family had been safe behind the shield when the blast happened. If that had not been the case, his family would have died in the blast his neighbors on either side had not lived through it. Now they where at war, they where building an invasion force training man and women to fight against fellow humans.

"I wonder how many more will die before this is all over?" said Jack outload to himself.

**18 months after time Dilation**

Colonel Jager stood before a group of new recruits to the armored warfare school on Valhalla. He had students from every nation with the Tau'ri alliance in his current class, a lot from the newist world of the Tau'ri Langara. Everyone was now wearing the same Battle Dress Uniform commonly called BDU which made it slightly harder to spot at a glance which nation everyone belong too. The only way to really tell was that under the Tau'ri flag patch their was always a second one the one of the home nation.

"Alright listen up, I am filling in for your normal instructor who has come down with the flu." Stated Jager "Now today we will be going over the 7 basic types of ground vehicles we are currently using, is that understood."

"Sir, yes sir." Came back the combined voice of the class as Jager nodded his head and as a class they began to move down the line where the multiple ground vehicles sat waiting to be shown to the newly arrived from basic recruits.

"This little baby is the Leopard III main battle tank." stated Jager as he placed his hand on the tank. "It has a top speed of 77 miles an hour over open country and can hit a target 2 miles away with regular armored piercing but throw in our new GPS guided shells we can hit targets 14 miles away. However when you first land in the Colonies there will be no GPS system to use."

"Sir why is that?" inquired a young Brazilian woman "I understand the Colonials have a GPS system on their worlds can we not use that?"

"On the surface it would make sense but the plan calls for the total destruction of every colonial made object in orbit." stated Jager "If we leave the GPS birds aloof then the colonials can use it. Regular shells will just have to do."

"Understood." confirmed the woman as the class moved on to what on the surface looked to be a Leopard tank, it had the same body which was capable of fitting through the gate like almost all of the other vehicles used by the Tau'ri ground forces. The main difference was that the turret was located at the very back of the body and the main gun was much longer and larger.

"This is the Jaguar mobile artillery." said Jager as he placed his hand on the long range gun. "The colonials actually do not have mobile artillery pieces outside of unguided rockers similar to the Soviet Katyusha rockets from WW2. Instead they use towed gun pieces which may have longer range but takes time to set up."

"Sir, then how do they carry out armored warfare?" inquired a Lagara recruit

"They don't, not in any mobile way we are used to." explained Jager "The way their military fights is more in line with World War 1 or even Napoleonic warfare. They line up in a set piece battle and then move forward with a heavy foot force. In fact their tanks are so slow that in most battle situation the man and women on foot can keep up with them by walking their max speed over flat land is only 42 miles an hour and they generally move no higher than 20 to 25 miles an hour while in combat."

They moved down the line to show the eight wheeled Cougar APC which could be fitted with different weapons based on needs ranging from simple machine guns to machine cannons to even rocket pods. The entire top could open up so that the squad of soldiers inside could stand up and shoot or even place a mortar. A similar thing could be done with the Puma recon vehicle however; they could not fit a mortar. Both vehicles where designed for speed and mobile warfare. The Tiger multiple rocket launch system was also very straightforward and did not seem that different then versions on Earth.

The two vehicles which stood out were the Cerberus infantry armor and the Lion heavy tank. The Cerberus infantry armor was a heavy weaponized power armor which could carry multiple different weapons based on needs. The Cerberus was designed to go where normal armor couldn't such as interior courtyards, alley ways or even inside buildings if it fit.

The Lion on the other hand was a monster in every way; it was so big that it couldn't fit through the gate. It was slow by Tau'ri standards with a top speed of 60 miles an hour but what it loss in speed it made up in unbeatable firepower. It carried as it main gun a mini ancient beam cannon that could cut through anything at over 25 miles away. It was also able to generate shields to protect itself but the shields were not as effective when moving. There was of course other Tau'ri vehicles, medical transports mine clearing and other support vehicles.

**2 years after Time Dilation**

"Keep moving!" yelled a voice over the load speaker as Tau'ri infantry moved across a series of trenches with barb wire, pieces of pig and cattle guts hung from the wire forcing the soldiers to move through the blood and guts. On the surface this would be an easy task considering the power armor gave them the strength that they would not normally have, however this was a none power armored training session. Nearby another group of soldiers where carrying out the same task only with power armor deactivated forcing them to drag the extra weight.

The hot Georgia sun was beating down on all of them as the new recruits into the US army kept up their training. The training camp had been built within weeks of the start of the war and had been full almost as once. Busloads of new recruits from all over the United States came here, other bases in the United States and on Valhalla. Similar situations where taking place on the other nations of the Tau'ri basic training took place in the home nation of the recruits before going to Valhalla for more unified training.

A group of new recruits where standing around an instructor on the firing range however they were not learning about their own personal weapons but instead the main colonial weapons. A dummy stood nearby dressed in the standard colonial army battle dress. It was a rather simple outfit, olive green or tan BDU depending on the area they were operating in but the colonials did not really use camo like the Tau'ri did. The colonial's traditional enemies where Cylons which could see in body heat and their battle doctrine meant moving on mass where being hidden meant very little. Over their BDU they wore bullet proof vests not that different from the ones that police officers wore and on top of their heads they had what looked to be an American helmet taken straight off the battlefields of WW2.

"Now listen up the colonials have two standard rifles that you will come across." said the instructor as he held up the standard assault rifle of the colonials. It looked like a strange version of an AK-style assault rifle, it had a bull-pup magazine in the but of the gun but it was still as long as a normal none bullpup style gun. Instead of making the weapon shorter which was one of the main advantages in a bullpup style it had a long narrow box like structure running from the trigger to the very end of the rifle. "This is what they call a Doru assault rifle, it holds a standard firing load of 25 rounds and is extremely heavy by our standards. This is because of two reasons, first everything in this gun is made out of either solid steel or wood, no plastics at all in the body and a metal rode runs down the total length of the gun. You could run a tank over this thing and it would not be bent. It was designed to be used as a cub weapon against robots. With that in mind let me show you one of the little surprises we found on this gun."

The recruits watched as the instructor walked over to a solid steel plate which had been hanging nearby. The instructor placed the barrel of the gun onto the metal and pulled a secondary trigger. A blast of compress air filled the air along with ripping metal. The instructor with some force pulled a spike bayonet six inches long out of the metal plate.

"The colonials have built into this tube you see under the weapon a compressed air fired bayonet which is capable of piecing through the sides of Cylons." stated the instructor "This will rip through your power armor and it will do one hell of a number on your flesh."

The recruits watched as the instructor pulled the secondary trigger again and the bayonet shot forward 3 inches again before returning to a standard bayonet position. With that done the instructor held up a long bolt-action rifle which looked straight out of WW1, it had a bayonet just like the shorter assault rifle only it was even longer a foot of solid metal which as also air fired.

"This is a Sarri, it means long spear in one of their ancient tongue and while it looked dated this gun fires a 50 caliber bullet and is a standard front line weapon for even recruits straight out of basic get this weapon." Stated the instructor as he raised the rifle and shot downrange at a metal target which ripped open as the massive bullet ripped through it. "Your power armor will not stop that either, you must all realize that while all our technology gives us the edge you like everyone else can be killed. Learn your weapons learn your enemy's weapons and trust in each other and you have the best chance of anyone to make it home."

**2 years 2 months after time diliation**

Hyperspace ripped open as a single Wraith Hive ship exited the vortex and entered normal space, the ship was heavily damaged, one of it's engines was burned out and another two were blown off. Parts of the ship was missing but it was still in one peace.

"Transfer all energy to haul regeneration." Ordered the Wraith Queen as she sat on a throne in the command center, her red hair was falling out in clumps she had missing nails and had an overall sickly appearance. The rest of the wraith on the bridge and in the entire ship where beyond the point of starvation. The Lanteans or Tau'ri as they called themselves have been preventing them at every turn from getting the human food they need to stay alive, they would occasionally get a handful of people in a raid but the large targets the entire worlds they used to feed were blocked by the Tau'ri. They would arrive only to find a Tau'ri fleet waiting for them.

"My Queen, maybe we should reconsider going into hibernation in the hopes that the Tau'ri will weaken themselves over time. Lax their guard and allow us to feed on them when they do not expect it." advised one of the senior deck crew.

"No, we can't do that." Snapped the Queen "While on the surface that seams like a good idea we need to have a meal first in order to survive in hibernation and secondly these Lanteans have advanced so far so fast that giving them time is the last thing we can afford. We need to contact the other hives, we must come together to defeat the Lanteans."

"Contact, we have contacts coming out of hyperspace directly in front of us!" yelled another officer

"More coming out behind us and to either side." said another as he paused for a moment. "All of them are Lanteans."

General Shepard stood on the bridge of the Battleship USS Montana the newest of the Tau'ri battleships and the current flagship of the Pegasus fleet. The Montana was the second American battleship and the 1st in what was being called the 3rd Generation of Missouri class ships. It wasn't that there was a great difference between the Missouri and the Montana it was just that with new construction bays being build and brought online on Valhalla it was a way to mark when that happened. Currently there were now a total of 32 bays building Missouri class battleships and Yorktown class Carriers. Right now there was only 14 of those ship classes in the field but that was on track to change.

"Sir, the Hive ship is heavily damaged," stated an sensor operator

"Well lets make an end of it." said the Captain of the Montana as the two other battleships in this task group moved into attack position. The Montana was going to head at the Hive ship head on, while the Indian battleship Shiva and the Turkish battleship Suleiman moved in behind the hive ship from above and from below. Those two spots where the Hive ships fire not focused, the Montana had to head at it head on to prevent it from escaping into hyperspace.

The hive ship did have powerful beams that fired straight ahead the wraith had designed them similar to old sailing ships of the line. Most of their weapons where located on the sides of the ship so that they could fire full broadsides at enemy ships or planets, those where the areas the Tau'ri ships avoided.

The three battleships moved in on the wounded hive ship and began to fire their Asgard beam weapons and ancient beam cannons. A hive ship at full strength could go toe to toe with a Tau'ri battleship and stand against them long enough to make an escape maybe even win if a lucky hit happened. Against three Battleships with a wounded heavy damaged ship there was no chance for the hive ship.

"Ram them!" yelled the Queen in a suicidal rage. "We will take as many of them with us!"

The Hive ship powered forward only to have the last of its engines blown off by a beam strike from the Shiva, causing it to loss control and forward speed. The hive ship was a sitting duck as the 3 battleships moved in to kill it while the Daedalus class ships and Eagles destroyed the Darts which had taken off from the damaged ship. In a couple of minutes it was over as the Hive ship, the Last Wraith Hive ship was destroyed.

"Send a message back to Atlantis we have cleared the galaxy of hive ships." stated General Shepard knowing that was a message that the galaxy had been waiting for since the rise of the Wraith. There was of course still Wraith out in the galaxy, cruisers and destroyers where harder to track then the Hive ships and small bands moving through the gate was even harder to track. It would take years if not decades to get them all but the majority of the Pegasus fleet would be sent back to the Milkway to rejoin the growing fleet to deal with the Colonials.

**Well I hope you enjoyed this chapter, I know it was a little broken up but it was the best way I could think of to do what I want. Now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	61. Chapter 61

**I am going to use a similar set up as last chapter, remember the Colonials are inside the Time Dilation so there time is moving slowly compared to what is happening outside.**

**Chapter 61 Building Up Part 2: the Colonies**

**1 day since Last Tau'ri attack**

Kara Thrace sat inside her apartment in the officers building on Canceron, the apartment was tiny even smaller than the one she owned on Caprica. She sat down on the couch in only a pair of shorts and a sports bra; she grabbed the remote and turned on the TV which like most of the furniture was fixed in place. The apartment and the countless copies in this building was designed for any unmarried officer to move in at any moment. She turned on the TV and was instantly greeted with a news broadcast, part of her wanted to change the channel instead; she took a pull on her beer and watched.

"The Tau'ri fires on Aerilon have finally all have been put out." Said the reporter as the image of green fire showed on a split screen. The date on the image said that it had been recorded a couple days ago. "Now the issue facing the farmers on Aerilon is what to do with the land that had been burned, to put out the fires a large amount of Salt had to be dumped and that salt has poisoned the land. To make matters worse the land is scared with what appears to be thin layer of hardened green tar and if the crust is broken then the fire restarts."

Kara listened for a few moments as so called experts talked about possible ways to restore the land, the next report was about the spike in cost for basic food such as bread and meat.

"We need to stress even with the loss of crops doesn't mean that there will be a food storage, each star system can support their local population but the government is expected to announce a rationing policy for critical items." said the reporter as the story moved on to the state of the war.

"Colonial forces have retaken Nysa in a hard fought battle which claimed the lives of just under 40 marines as they retook the base." said the reporter "However as they reclaimed the base our wayward cousins set off a nuke destroying the base and a large part of the asteroid. Vice President Spiro and several members of the Quorum have declared this an important first step in reclaiming Kobol. On a personal note, I would like to say to the audience that this is the first time since the war began that we have forced the 13th tribe back in a clear way. With the Lords of Kobol on our side it will not be the last."

Kara took a pull on her beer as the anchor went on to talk about how the Tau'ri attack on Scorpia shipyard and how since most of the rubble which now in descending orbits toward the worlds where thin and unarmored that it would burn up.

"A record number of new recruits have enlisted to fight and production schedules are meeting all meeting their time schedule." said the head of the war supply departments.

"Yes, because we are basically making the same stuff we used in the Cylon war." stated Kara as she took a deep pull on her beer. She had visited the main factory where they making the updated viper, since it was all but the same bird only with slightly more powerful engines and extra interchangeable weapon pods it were the same. She had seen how the Tau'ri fighters had ripped through them and if the same thing was true about their ground forces then she thanked the Lords of Kobol that they have the more men.

**10 days since Last Tau'ri Attack**

Admiral Adama sat behind his desk onboard the Galactica looking at the mound of paperwork which covered his desk. Ever sense his promotion to the rank of Admiral he had gained the ear of the President and had become the head of the reserve fleet. He had quickly focused on getting the battlestars up and running, that was a problem but the main problem was training the new generation, which had become used to computers on how to operate the old ships. The task had been made easier when they brought onboard the veternians of the Cylon war to train the new crews but it was still a slow process.

"Admiral Adama." said a young officer as she handed him another report.

"Thanks Lieutenant." said Adama to the young staff officer that the high command had assigned him, the woman was nothing more than a glorified receptionist and wasn't even certified in any weapons outside of a pistol. "That will be all for tonight why don't you get some rest, we need to go to Libran to see about reactivating some destroyers."

"Yes, sir." said the Lieutenant as she snapped to attention before walking out of the room. Adama flipped open the file and scanned the report, it was a damage report from the attack on Scorpia. The shipyards had taken heavy damage but repairs where already underway, the mostly finished ships took the attack with minimal damage and the Hercules the newest battlestar in a brand new class of Colonial Warships would soon be ready for launch. He turned his attention to another report which showed something very strange, it was a chart which showed the Tau'ri attacks on the Colonies. There was a steady increase in attacks which was what Adama had expected it took time to get military equipment in the field, it had dropped when they agreed to talks but it never stopped. Now it had stopped, all Tau'ri attacks had stopped, all the wireless broadcasts they had been intercepting and attempting to decode had stopped. It was as if the Tau'ri had never been there.

"Something is wrong, they are planning something." said Adama to himself as he stood up and walked across the room toward painting, which showed an ancient sailing ship firing a broadside worth of cannons. He pulled on one corner of the painting, which sat on a hidden hinge to show a safe. He quickly put in the combination before pulling out report marked high command eyes only.

He opened it to show the general war plan for operation Thunderbolt the invasion of Kobol, the plan called for 12 field armies. Each field army was made out of up to a million soldiers or marines depending on if it was a marine unit for a grand total of 12 million soldiers to retake Kobol, that was only the unites on the ground and didn't including the people in orbit or in the sky. It was on track to be the single largest operation in colonial military history, ten times larger than the largest operation that took place in the Cylon war. With 9 of the 12 worlds having populations over the billion mark it wasn't surprising that they could pull that many people into battle but it was an ungodsly large amount for a single operation while still leaving a large amount of people to defend their world.

He studied the operation, the launching point for the operation would be Tauron, the flat plains would make it easier for troops to embark on the landing ships as well as train for the operation. With a strong military history Tauron was the military heart of the colonies. The plan called for an increase in armored units, this was because of the recon photos, which showed that the Tau'ri had increase the amount of armored units on Kobol.

"Ground fighting, we haven't seen what the Tau'ri can do on the ground outside of hit and run," stated Adama as he tried to image what he Tau'ri ground fighting was. He walked back to his desk and lied out the photos of the Tau'ri vechicals, the first thing that jumped out of him was that they weren't as big their colonial counterpart. It was still easy to see that was a tank and what was not but even so they just looked lighter. It was impossible to see how fast they were moving but intelligence estimated that they could go around 40 miles an hour which was faster than the 32 of the Pallas tank. "We have to expect that the Tau'ri rely on speed, they do the same thing with their ships moving in fast and hitting hard. We have to expect the same."

Suddenly the phone on his desk rang which snapped the old admiral out of his thoughts.

"Admiral Adama." said Adama as he picked up the phone.

"Admiral, this is wireless." said the wireless operator in the CIC "A message just came over the wireless permission to bring it to you."

"Is it classified?" inquired Adama as he looked at the wall clock, he need to get some sleep and didn't want to wait for the wireless operator to wait for a replacement to bring the file to him.

"Yes, sir but it is a level 3." Said the officer, a level 3 was border line classified and it wasn't uncommon to find level 3 classified information in the paper a week after it went around the fleet.

"Then read it to me and put it in my file for pick up in the morning." Ordered Adama

"Sir, recon has spotted a Tau'ri defense station located in grid A1, A1, A1." Reported the operator as Adama mentally placed the location. Since space went out in all direction, there was an X, Y and Z axis and a location of A1, A1 and A1 put the Tau'ri right in the middle of Colonial space.

"It is just sitting there?" inquired Adama

"So it would seem, but sir this is the strange thing the report says that a black hole is now in the location." stated the wireless operator "I sent a request to confirm that statement and got it, there is now a black hole at that location with a Tau'ri defense station sitting right over it."

"I see, inform me of any other developments." Ordered Adama

"Yes, sir." Confirmed the officer as Adama ended the call.

**14 Days since the Last Tau'ri attack.**

Teal'c walked into the command center of the defense satellite only to hear alarms going off.

"Report." Ordered Teal'c in a voice that told them that he was a man to listen too even if he wasn't officially in the Tau'ri military.

"Long range sensors show a large group of Colonial battelstars gathering only a single jump away from our current location." explained an operator.

"Any threat?" inquired another member of their crew

"No, our shields are up and we are getting extra power from the black hole." explained the operator "Our shields are just as strong as if a ZPM is powering them, same goes for our weapons."

"I would rather not show the max range of this weapon, if they come let them get close before firing." ordered Teal'c as the others nodded their heads in agreement. Before anything else could be said multiple flashes of light appeared in the distance as a colonial battlegroup of 40 ships appeared out of the flashes. Due to the singularity of the black hole sitting directly below the station the colonials couldn't approach from below the station without getting sucked into the black hole.

"Sir, looks like their engines are going in full reverse." stated the operator "They likely don't have the engine power to escape the black hole's gravity if they cross the event horizon."

"They are firing." Reported another officer as the massive guns of the battlestars and other ships opened up beyond their normal range, they were hoping that firing on mass in the direction of the Tau'ri station would score them a hit, it didn't. The shells where effective by the black hole's gravity and spun down into the heart of the hole.

"Sir, they are well within range, we could open up before they try to adjust their aim to take into account the gravity." Advised an officer

"Very well." Stated Teal'c as the main cannon of the station a Tau'ri copy of the ancient version charged up. It fired the highly energized beam with so much force it broke the free of the pull of the black hole and cut straight through a battlestar before hitting two other ships. The beam stopped and began it's 90 second recharge but before it could fire again the colonials jumped away.

"I don't think they will be messing with us for a while." Stated the officer as Teal'c watched the remains of the three destroyed colonial ships move toward the heart of the black hole, they would be added fuel to power the time dilation device.

"They will try to suicide attacks next, jump their ships right next to us and ram our station." Stated an officer

"They would have tried that first." Countered Teal'c

"That is likely sir." Said a second officer "We aren't totally sure but it is unlikely that their FTL could jump inside the event horizon of the black hole."

"Monitor them anyhow." Ordered Teal'c

**1 month since Last Tau'ri attack**

"First I would like to tell you that I am so proud of all of you for finishing your basic training," said the base commander as he stood on a stage before two companies of newly trained Colonial soldiers. All 300 of them stood on the parade ground with grandstands behind them where their friends and family members had come to celebrate the moment. "You have all finished your training and are now full soldiers ready to fight to defend your home from our enemies, now normally I would go on about duty and honor but we have a special guest. Now allow me to introduce Priest Spiro of the Holy Order of Zeus."

The sound of clapping filled the air as the most holy man in the 12 colonies of Kobol, the brother to the vice president and the head of the holy order of Zeus walked toward the podium. The old man paused for a moment to pull some reading glasses from a case he kept in a hidden pocket in the sleeves his robes. In truth he wasn't suppose to modify the robes, they were his uniform like any solider and he was suppose to keep everything in pouches attached to the leather belt but he never liked that and no one really complained that he had made the slight change. He cleared his voice and began to speak about how each one of them where following the path of Ares and how the Lord of Kobol would give strength to their weapons and themselves. He was maybe half way done when a strange high pitch sound filled the air. No one was sure of anything until a strange craft dove out of the clouds and headed straight toward the gathering of soldiers.

"What the frak!" yelled a solider in the front row load enough to be heard on the PA system as the craft darted down and opened fire with beams of blue light which struck the soldiers standing in formation sending them flying through the air, arms and legs missing. Screams filled the air as the pointed craft carried out a long attack run over the field shooting multiple times at the soldiers.

"Get Priest Spiro inside!" yelled the protection detail made out of regular colonial soldiers and holy men and women from the Temple of Ares. These holy men and women were also warriors and carried out a mostly ceremonial duty but not today. They rushed the holist man in the colonies inside the nearby command office building.

Inside that building hiding in one of the back rooms, was someone who couldn't be real in the eyes of the holy men and women rushing his way.

Todd looked up from the mini computer pad that the Tau'ri had given him, this little computer linked with the dart allowing him to pilot it from a distance. He had carried out his attack run on it and now with a push of the button the dart cloaked itself and moved to a standby position. Todd took a breath as he pulled his stun pistol from his belt and with one graceful move, he exited the room which he had been using and entered the hallway.

He moved down the hallway toward his target as alarms began going off and the sound of screams pierced the walls. Neither the alarms nor the screams concerned him, he was used to screams and the alarms where about the attack not him…yet. He heard rushing feet coming from the staircase as he moved toward it. Without even looking up he shot the two soldiers coming down the stairs in the chest with his pistol before moving up toward the main floor. He stepped over the bodies and stepped out onto the main floor which was full of guards.

"What the…" started the first one to see him as Todd slammed his hand onto him and began to suck the life out of him. His screams caused the others to turn toward him including Priest Spiro.

"By the Lords of Kobol!" stated Spiro as his guards opened up on the creature with their side arms, each one of their bullets hit Todd in his chest but did no harm. He was using one of the oldest tricks in the book for the Wraiths, he feed off a human as he moved forward under fire. This allowed him to heal almost as once and filled the humans he was moving toward with fear. It worked well in the Pegasus galaxy where they knew what Wraiths were, it worked better here.

"Run!" yelled a guard as he emptied his pistol magazine and slammed in another. Todd raised his own pistol and shot the guards with pinpoint shots bring them all down aside from Priest Spiro. The hallway now empty of guards and in fact standing humans aside from Spiro Todd moved forward and stood before the holy man.

"I must give you credit, you aren't running away." Stated Todd

"I am a man of the Lords of Kobol," stated Priest Spiro with force, which impressed Todd. "I fear no demon."

"Well let's get going." explained Todd as he grabbed the holy man by the arm and forced him out of the door he had just exited. They went outside to see the results of the attack, blood and body parts covered the field.

"Priest Spiro!" yelled a nearby solider as he and the others nearby spun around to see the old man standing in front of a demon like creature with greenish tone skin and a strange tattoo over one eye.

"Tell your leaders that I will be in the woods and if they want him back they will have to come and get him." Explained Todd as a nearby cameraman who had been filming the ceremony focused on Todd and Priest Spiro.

"You aren't going anywhere whatever you are." stated the bravest of the soldiers. The sound of the screams and calls of aid which filled the air prevented them from hearing the dart as it came back around on autopilot. As it passed over Todd a beam of light engulfed both him and the human. With both of them in the beam storage area, the computer cloaked the dart as it headed back toward the forest which had become the home base of operation for Todd. The Dart flew totally on autopilot and even beamed the two of them down into a grassy field on autopilot.

"What the?" inquired the old man as Todd let him go before shooting him with his stun gun.

When Priest Spiro opened his eyes again he found himself sitting behind a simple wooden, he scanned the room or rather the cave he was in only to see the creature which had taken him sitting across from him reading a book, one of his books.

"Welcome back Priest Spiro, I was hoping you and I could have a talk before I go deal with the division worth of soldiers your government is flooding into the area." explained the creature in a tone which made him sound more like a TV interviewer then a demon.

"What are you?" inquired Spiro

"My name is Todd, I am a wraith and alien from the Pegasus galaxy." explained Todd "An alien who eats people."

"Aliens aren't real," countered Spiro ignoring the idea that this thing ate people.

"And yet one sits before you." countered Todd "I work as a mercenary for the Tau'ri and as such I have been hunting down the soldiers your government has been sending into this area, however your government lately has taken the stance that it is better to try to starve me out."

"But if you hold me, they will come to you." stated Spiro

"Yes, and even after I let you go they will come because I made them look bad." Explained Todd "Makes my job that much easier."

"Now while we wait, would you like to discuss some of your findings in your latest book." Inquired Todd "I have collected books from multiple races but I don't have a signed copy of a book from the author, that will be a first in my collection."

**1 and 1/2 months since the last Tau'ri attack**

A group of colonial army soldiers moved through the woods with weapons raised, so many of their numbers had gone missing in the woods. Whole squads and fire teams had gone missing, some had been found either hanging from trees of walking out of the woods decades older then they walked in. The media was focused on this and high command was throwing everything they had at these woods but so far no luck. The area was too large, too mountainous and too honeycombed with caves in mountains. It would take months maybe years to search them all, they had thought about firebombing the woods but it would kill Spiro and that couldn't be allowed to happen.

"The man is dead, why are we wasting our time." stated a private as he held his bolt action rifle close to his body.

"He is the voice of the Lords of Kobol, we have to find him or at least his body." countered another private as suddenly the sound of screams filled the air behind them. The squad moved through the woods toward the sound only to come across one of the staging areas. The staging area was a small rest point and landing area for raptors which had been cut out from the forest. What made this area even worse was that a small press pool which was monitoring the search for Priest Spiro.

"What is going on?" yelled the squad leader as the person in charge of the staging area pointed toward a tree where Priest Spiro was hanging from. The rope was wrapped around his legs so he hung upside down and was clearly still alive. A sign hung around his body.

"I prefer fresher meat." Read the sign, by now that image was being broadcast across all the colonies.

**2 month since Last Tau'ri attack**

"Something is wrong." Said Baltar as he and Dr. Jenny Oldstone sat at the cafeteria on the hidden base where they were doing their research.

"It is strange, that none of our probes have come back since the first one." Stated Jenny Oldstone "The Tau'ri must be shooting them down."

"All of them?" countered Baltar "Now something is going on, they can't be destroying them all we are sending some of them away from their world toward the Cylons and they don't come back either. And then there is that space station they built over a black hole which doesn't seam to be doing anything."

"The intel people think it is gathering intelligence." Stated Jenny

"If that was the case why wouldn't they just cloak it why make a black hole which by itself shouldn't be possible to defend it." countered Baltar "Something is going on."

"Like what?" inquired Jenny

"Look at it the Tau'ri have pulled out and they haven't launched a single attack on us in two months, they have that space station over a black hole which doesn't seam to be doing anything, none of our probes have come back." Stated Baltar "And have you seen the reports from the astronomy department, they have been getting some very strange reports. I think that the Tau'ri have put us in a bubble."

"A bubble?" inquired Jenny

"Yes, they have put us inside a shield that way they can build up their forces without worry while we are stuck her." Stated Baltar "The strange astronomy readings is because we are looking at light passing through a shield, it would be as if we are looking at light passing through water it is distorted. Our probes smash into the shield stopping them from reaching their destination."

"If that is true then how do we prove it?" inquired Jenny, as a humanoid Cylon she knew what was really going on but she was not going to tell him. Even so he was on the right track even if he thought it was just thought that the colonials where under blockade and not that outside the bubble time was moving faster.

"I don't know, but I think it is something I need to bring up with the base commander." Stated Baltar

"Unless you have proof it would be hard to make him believe you." countered Jenny "Maybe it would be best if you find proof before you bring it to the base commander."

"You may be right." Admitted Baltar as the two of them went back to their meal.

**2 and 1/2 month since the Last Tau'ri attack**

"Remember what you have to do out there!" yelled the sergeant as he moved down the line of the trench. On either side of him where two lines of men and women none older than their mid-twenties and all of them armed with the two standard rifles of the Colonial Army. The trench itself was dug to the standard level just over seven feet tall, high enough for anyone to stand in the trench without getting his or her head blown off. On one side of the trench where a raised area so that a standing person could get into a firing position. In multiple sections, those areas went out even more to allow shorter people a firing position and more importantly allow easy movement out of the trench. Those area where always flanked by at least two machine guns. "Do you hear me?"

"Sir…yes sir!" yelled the group of recruits, down the line stood two women dressed in the same uniform. Their helmets strapped down tight under their chins, their longer hair was pulled back into pony tails and shoved under their helmets. Each of them had a pack just as heavy as any man's

"You ready for this Acacia?" inquired a young woman about the same age

"Are you Medea?" inquired Acacia to her best friend since elementary school on Virgon.

"Last year we were worried about passing our school exams now this?" stated Medea as the dark skin woman with even darker eyes gripped her bolt action rifle even tighter.

"I was worried about exams you where casing after what was his name?" joked Acacia as she reached behind her and pulled out her water bottle and took a drink. Suddenly the whistle blew once and everyone tensed up more as the artillery and machine guns began shooting. The fire was so load none of them heard the nearby Pallas tanks spin up and start moving forward. Once the tanks and other vehicles cleared the trench the machine guns stopped and a second whistle was blown.

"Lets go!" yelled their sergeant as the two friends began climbing out of the trench onto the battle scared practice field. As one the line of soldiers moved forward with the artillery landing hundreds of yards in front of them. They moved in a single powerful battle column, tanks and armored vehicles spread out across the practice two miles. Infantry moved forward walking beside the tank with weapons ready. Every so often a practice dummy would spring up from preplaced areas and would get hit by multiple bullets before falling back down.

"I got one!" yelled Medea as she worked the bolt on her rifle.

"Me too!" yelled Acacia back as she looked at the powerful tank beside her and the unbeatable wave of force that was moving forward. "Those frakers have no idea what they will deal with when we reach Kobol."

"No and we will celebrate on Kobol when this is done!" yelled Medea back as they kept moving forward, it took them the better part of an hour to cover the half a mile distance that the training session required. There they carried out a simulated attack on a matching trench system with even more practice string loaded dummies. Then finally the day was done and the group formed up and marched back to their barracks.

"I heard they are going to announce who gets leave for the Victory Celebration next month." stated a Tauron man in front of the two women. The victory celebration was one of the major holidays in the colonies, it celebrated the end of the Cylon war and for only the third time in history the 5 day long celebration would fall on the same five days which honored the Lord of Kobol Ares making the celebration even bigger.

"I hope our unite gets off and we don't have to march in any parades marking the anniversary of the end of the Cylon war." Stated Medea

"I hope we get to march." countered Acacia "Because if we do then we will sure to get off for at least three days, I would rather march and three days off then not march and only have one day off during a five day celebration."

"True, I had forgotten about that." admitted Medea "And we may get one of the major cities here and Tauron is known to throw a fraken good of a party when they celebrate victory day."

"Let's hope we march," restated Acacia as they headed back to one of the many bases, which now covered the flat fields of Tauron.

**3 Months since the Last Tau'ri attack**

Scorpia shipyards still showed the scars from the Tau'ri attack, pieces of metal floated in space and the rebuilding efforts where fall from done however today was an important day. Sectary Cain had come herself along with multiple other members of the Quorum to see the launching of three of the largest ships in colonial history. All three Hercules class battlestars were now finished, in truth the first one the Hercules was finished months ago and even went on a trail run but had returned for the official launch with the two sister ships the Theseus and the Bellerophon. The other ships of that class where still being constructed and would be a while until being finished however the three Hercules class ships where the largest ships in the colonial navy. Two times the armor, three times firepower and just under double the amount of vipers and raptors of the Mercury class battlestars.

The three ships named for some the greatest heroes in the holy scrolls moved past the reviewing station where the honored guests and the workers who built the three ships stood looking out of reinforced glass at the three ships and the swarm of vipers and raptors which moved with them.

"Such a display of force." Said the soon to be Admiral in charge of the Theseus "Our wayward cousins don't stand a chance."

Sectary Cain simply nodded her head, she did not know how well the extra amour would do against the beam weapons of the Tau'ri but she knew that those ships had no defenses against the weapons beamed onboard out of thin air. However one question kept bugging her, where was the Tau'ri. The media keep up a line that the Tau'ri had fallen back when faced with the might of the Colonies but while the average person may believe it, she did not. They have been monitoring that space station but it had not done anything and to the amazement of the scientist, the black hole was actually getting smaller. Too many things did not add up, too many unknowns and something did not seem right. There was no reason for the Tau'ri to pull back like they did, the only thing that was attacking them was someone called Todd who was terrorizing the people of Sagittarian and killing whole squads of soldiers sent into the woods after him. The Tau'ri where up to something but she did not know what.

"A quiet enemy is an enemy planning to do something," whispered Cain to herself as she wondered what their enemy was up to.

**Well I hope you liked this chapter, I have one more chapter planned and then the time dilation field falls and I can get back to my normal style of writing. Now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75**


	62. Chapter 62

**Before I start this chapter, I wish to inform everyone that while I understand that people love and look forward to this story I update when the chapter is ready not before that, normally every week to 10 days. I say this because I am getting tired of getting PM after PM from multiple people asking me when I am going to update. Well let me say once and for all that I update when the Chapter is ready and sending me PM after PM will not make the chapter come out sooner. The chapter will come out when the chapter is ready and not sooner.  
**

**Chapter 62 Setting the Stage**

**2 years 9 months since time dilation **

All four of the currently finished Tau'ri carriers gathered in a single area of space, two of the carriers where American, the Yorkton and the Enterprise, one was Chinese's the Feilong which translated into flying dragon and the newest carrier the British Gibraltar. Along with them where their escorting ships which included the two battleships including the German Battleship Bismarck and the Japanese Battleship Yamato. Across the void of space from them where 60 Cylon basestars which were standing in for a colonial attack group.

"Begin the training operation." ordered General Leong as she stood on the bridge of the Yorktown, the Chinese General would normally be more at home on a chinese ship and better yet on the ground but the Yorktown was the flagship of the task group.

"Yes, ma'am." Said the American General in charge of the Yorktown. The three carriers began to launch their Eagles fighters and Taita fighter bombers. Across the training field from them the cylons where launching thousands of Cylon raiders. The two sides moved toward each other, the cylons outnumbering the Tau'ri by almost 20 to 1.

"I wish we could make this a more realist." complained the American General as he stood beside General Leong.

"Yes." Agreed General Leong as the two sides began to trade "fire" in truth it was computer simulated missiles and harmless laser beams to stand in for guns. "However this is the best we can do in the real world. Simulation are a very useful tool but our pilots like everyone else need time behind the wheel."

"Behind the stick, ma'am." corrected the American with a slight cockiness that General Leong was used to hearing in American voices.

"I am an armored warfare general." explained General Leong as the American nodded his head in understanding.

"It is too bad that the Cylons made the switch to missiles instead of keeping with guns like the Colonials did." added the American General as both of them watched the kill tally going up on the screen. The Tau'ri fighters where decimating the cylon raiders, however the cylon raiders where doing better than the computer estimates believed they would.

"Ah, look here it seems that most of the most of the shot downs are among our new pilots." Stated the American general "Those who are in their first training mission."

"Then it is a good thing that we are doing this." stated General Leong as the Eagles and Raiders kept up their fighting as the Taita fighter bombers moved in on practice bombing runs on the Cylon basestars.

Onboard the Cylon basestar the humanoid cylons watched in amazement as their raiders where systematic whipped off the face of the simulated battlefield. They outnumbered the Tau'ri fighters 20 to 1 and they were getting pushed back. Their basestars began to open up with simulated anti-air attacks but still the Eagles moved faster then what should have been possible.

"They must have done some upgrades to their fighters since the last time." Stated Cavil as the Cylon fighter defense broke under the force of the Tau'ri attack and the door was opened for a Tau'ri bombing run on their ships. Within 10 minutes it was all over the Cylon fleet which was standing in for the Colonial fleet was either crippled or destroyed.

"Alright, lets reset for the next simulation." ordered a six to a centurion who sent the message out to the raiders. This time the Tau'ri would play a defensive role and the raiders would carry out attack runs on the Tau'ri ships.

**3 years since time dilation.**

"This is impressive." stated General O'Neill as he walked around the newly finished Neil Armstrong space port which floated over the pacific ocean at the moment but in a few hours would be over the Atlantic Ocean. The space station didn't feel like a space station, not a traditional one it was as if a mall and an airport had been moved up into space. There was where terminals spreading out from the central sphere which made up the bulk of the station. However the core of the building was basically a mall, shops lined the wall and thanks to artificial gravity it the same as Earth. Only two places really showed that they were in outer space, the windows which showed the Earth below them and the international space station which had been turned into a makeshift museum piece/central lobby attraction. The ISS for short hung in a bubble of space behind reinforced glass and shielding which allowed it to remain floating in space even as the new space station was built around it.

"Think that was started in 1998." Said Daniel as he looked up at the station "And now it is 2023 and it is now a museum piece."

"Like I should be." added Jack as the old general looked around the station. There was a Starbucks Coffee shop that fell within the shadow the ISS.

"This place will start getting very busy once they start settlement of Mars and Venus." said Daniel, both of them knew that project was moving ahead very well, oceans where already formed and plant life was growing rapidly. The next step would be animal life and then full colonization, that was of course based on the fact that all the tests for alien germ came back clean.

"And they are building one over Lanagara." added Jack "The Quinn station is what they are naming it right?"

"That is the current front runner, Jonas is a world hero to them." Confirmed Danial as he sniffed the air and got a scent of a nearby bakery. "I could use something to eat."

"A pretzel does sound good." Admitted Jack as the two of them moved through the almost empy station. The official opening would happen next week but some stores where open to serve the workers on the station.

They paid for their snack with some of the new currency, the bills where the standard size of US dollars but instead of the picture of US presidents on them it had images of the five current worlds in the Tau'ri, Earth, Valhalla, Lanagara, Mars and Venus with images of wildlife on the other side. Each one was different depending on the domination, it was a joint issues currency that would be accepted everywhere inside the Tau'ri and was likely going to become the official currency in a handful of years some of the smaller nations had even announced the date they would stop printing their own national currency.

The two old friends sat down at a small table beside a fountain that sat below the ISS.

"I heard they are considering naming the Mars space port after you and the one over Venus after Carter." laughed Daniel "The whole men are from Mars joke."

"Which is another reason why they shouldn't do it." admitted Jack "Having high schools named after me is weird enough, a space station is something on a whole different scale."

"True, and I should talk the one they are building over Valhalla may have my name on it." admitted Daniel.

"Strange days indeed." Stated Jack as he looked into the distance. "I wonder how Teal'c is doing?"

"Well to him only a few weeks have passed so he will look the same when he comes out of the time dilation field." Explained Daniel

"So what is in the future for you?" inquired Jack

"I am taking part in a conference with some of the more advanced human groups in the galaxy, aside from trade we want to work out a standard to judge educational levels by so that people can work across boarders," Explained Daniel as he drank some of his coffee. "I wouldn't be surprised if someday in the future they join with us like Langara did, but they are waiting to see how that turns out first."

"Well things are working out well so far." stated Jack "They even have some sports in the Olympics don't they?"

"That was part of the agreement for them to join." added Daniel "But yes everything is going smoothly so far, but they want to wait and see."

"And so shall we." added Jack

**3 years 3 months since Time Dilation**

"General everything is ready." Reported an officer onboard one of the multiple defense station which surrounded the area of space around the ORI supper gate.

"Are we sure?" inquired Samantha Carter

"Yes, shouldn't be needed we are pulling on the power of a blackhole." stated Dr. Mckay as he moved to stand beside Samantha, he had come from Atlantis to take part in this operation. "The math supports our belief that using a super gate we should be able to make contact with the Destiny."

"We hope, this can transport whole ships across the void of galaxies but we are making a much bigger distance." stated Samantha as she looked down at her own computer pad. It was a rather straight forward plan, using the Supergate they would dial the destiny. The math said that the energy put out by the Supergate to transport a massive ship across galaxies could be stretched to reached the destiny with a jumper. While getting to the Destiny was straight forward getting back was going to be more complex, the plan to transport them back meant giving up four of the 12 ZPMs but it would allow them to maintain a crew on the destiny.

"Alright lets dial the Destiny." Ordered Carter as the computers onboard the defense satellite began to dial the Ori supergate. The sides of the Ori gate began to glow as the gate was dialed, everyone sat and watched as the 7th chevron was locked, then the 8th and finally the 9th. With a rush of energy the gate opened.

"Tracking wormhole…tracking." reported an operator as the computer followed the wormhole out of the milkway and across the galaxies. "Ma'am we can confirm we have reached the area where Destiny should be. But at the distances we are dealing with we can only confirm that they are within the right area and we may be off by a galaxy."

"Destiny this is Stargate Command, come in this is Stargate command." Said Samantha as they waited for a response that never came.

"Launching probe." Said Mckay as a probe about half the size of a jumper was launched from a nearby Daedalus class cruiser. The probe moved through the gate and they all waited for a it to cross the mind boggling lightyears to reach the Destiny. When the images did return, there was a massive drop in hope as they got nothing by the black void of space with stars in the distance.

"The Destiny must have been destroyed." Said a scientist

"Wait." Ordered McKay as he tapped his computer pad and zoomed in on a section of the image, there was the tringle shape of the Destiny floating in space, still intact.

"But if the Destiny is there then why did the probe come out in space?" inquired the scientist

"Give me a 360 view." ordered Carter as the probe scanned the area only to see that it was above a massive pool of energy which surrounded 180 degrees of what the probe could see. "It's a super gate."

"A supergate, why would a supergate be sitting out in the void between galaxies?" inquired Mckay

"Because the Ancients would need to have a way to reach their ship, maybe their plan was to use supergates not regular gates on special planet's like we thought." offered Samantha "They programed that ship to cross the void and set up stargate networks in unmapped galaxies. They could program other ships to build a supergate for them and the supergate would be dominate over every other nearby gate."

"If that is then we can bring everyone back with ease." advised Mckay "A supergate wouldn't need ZPMs to reach us."

"General shall we send the team?" inquired an aid

"Send them." Ordered Carter as the jumper left the same Daedalus ship loaded with a team of soldiers and scientist. It was a repeat process as the jumper passed through the gate and came out on the other side.

"Command we can confirm we have reached the other side, the destiny is in sight and we can confirm a supergate." Reported the French pilot of the jumper.

"We will make contact with you in four hours." Stated Carter as the gate deactivate and everyone sat back and waited.

Across the countless millions of lightyears the jumper moved toward the Destiny all the while calling on the radio but getting no response. The Jumper reached the destiny to find it totally powered down, with the only life signs coming from one area of the ship and judging from the location it was the destiny crew in status pods. The jumper moved to take a position beside an airlock, the team dressed in combat space suits opened the back of the jumper and after a few moments opened the airlock and entered the ship.

"Move." Ordered the American in command of the team as they moved through the darkened ship with weapons raised and eyes on the life sign detector.

"We can't trust that thing totally." ordered a Russian "Who knows if it can detect everything."

The team quickly reached the bridge to find it dark and untouched. They quickly patched in the naquadah generator they had brought and brought the ship back online. It took a few moments for the systems to come back to life but when they did they reported that there was no none human life onboard.

"You three get this ship back online, you three with me." ordered the American as they moved down the ship until they reached the cro-sleep pods. "Unfreeze him."

"Yes, sir." confirmed the German as he tapped a few commands into the control pad beside the pod, within seconds it opened. It took a couple of moments for the man inside to open his eyes.

"Colonel Young, do you hear me?" inquired the America

"What…who are you?" inquired Colonel Young

"I am Colonel Freeman." Said the African American colonel "We are here to bring you home."

"My God, you found a way to reach us." coughed Young

"Yes, sir." said Freeman giving the older man the respect he had earned. "We are going to take you all home."

"How did you get here?" inquired Young, then he noticed that all of them had strange uniforms on and weapons in their hands. "How long have we been under?"

"Sir, the year is 2023." Explained Colonel Freeman

"13 years." Stated Young "We were suppose to wake up before this?"

"Sir, it seams that the ancients had other plans. They programmed the ship to stop in front of a supergate to take on crew and so the ship stopped here." stated the German sergeant "This is good for us because we can get you back home."

"What is going on back on Earth?" inquired Young

"Let's say you are in for some surprises." Stated Colonel Freeman

"Tell me?" ordered Young

"Well sir, the world knows about the gate, we have colonized a whole new world we named Valhalla, we are terraforming Mars and Venus and we at war with a group of humans called the 12 colonies of Kobol." Explained Colonel Freeman "Now let's get you and your people home."

**3 years 9 months since time Dilation**

Night was falling fast over the smaller of the two continents which made up Valhalla, this continent had been set aside for wildlife with only a training base the size of Texas saved for military use. That was before the war and now the entire continent was being used as one giant military training center. Wildlife still roamed free and the area was large enough that the now multiple bases which dotted the land and the roads which linked them didn't affect the animals.

Sitting out in a tall field of grass that went up to beyond the treads of his Leopard 3 tank was recently promoted Colonel Jager. All around him this command sat waiting for night to fall and the training session to begin. He scanned the area a large mostly flat grassland, with a few rolling hills. The only area of note was a line of hills slightly larger than any other nearby. It was perfect tank country and he was a tanker.

"Sir, I hate that we are getting a new driver on the day of the largest training session in history." complained the gunner

"Nothing we can do about that." stated Jager as he wished his old driver hadn't gotten killed in a stupid drunken dare.

"Colonel Jager?" said a voice as Jager looked down into the eyes of a boy who didn't look older than 16.

"Your my new driver?" inquired Jager

"Yes, sir Private Adon Spiro." Said the young man as he snapped to attention.

"Spiro that sounds familiar, it isn't German where are you from?" inquired Jager

"Sir…I am…from Sagittarian." answered Private Spiro as Jager tilted his head, the gunner and loader also heard that and poked their heads out of the turret to look at the young man. "My family was taken in as religious refugees by the Tau'ri when I was 14 and I signed up to fight. Against my Grandfather and all the others."

"Your grandfather?" inquired Jager

"The current vice President of the Colonies." explained Private Spiro as Jager as he rubbed his chin as he looked at the man, that would have been almost 4 years ago so he was likely recently 18.

"Alright, we have a training operation beginning today so put your stuff in the storage area and get situated." ordered Jager

"Yes, Sir." said Private Spiro as he snapped to attention and Jager noticed that unlike the others he had seen, Private Spiro only had the Tau'ri flag on his arm no flag from a nation on Earth or Langara.

"Tell me something Private Spiro, what does this landscape look like to you?" inquired the gunner as Colonel Jager tensed a bit.

"Well in truth, it reminds me of Tauron." admitted Spiro

"See I told you, that must be our invasion spot." stated the Loader

"The Land is the land and until they announce it no one is to know where we are going to land." Ordered Jager as the crew understood what he was saying.

Darkness engulfed the land quickly as the row after row of tanks sat in the dark with no lights whatsoever on. The only way people saw what they were doing was thanks to the built in low light night vision system built into all of their helmet visors. The system was truly remarkable a combination of advanced night vision with infrared allowed the wearing to see the area in a sort of pale green light but they could see almost as far as they normally could with the bare eye.

The roar of jets caused Jager to look up into the night sky, Eagle fighters buzzed overhead followed moments later by the giant Pelican transport aircraft. With this vision, he could see the black and white stripes painted on the wings of the giant bird just like the allies did in WW2.

"I wonder what my ancestor thought when he saw those plans?" inquired Jager before checking his heads-up display. It happened just as he expected he watched as man and women began to jump out of the back and sides of those massive aircraft. Light vehicles like the Puma recon vehicle and even something as heavy as a Cougar APC where also pushed out the back of those aircraft.

"Right on time." Confirmed Jager as he looked down the line of his tanks, all the commanders had their heads out of the copula and with a simple hand sign he ordered all of them to start up their engines and roll out. He could have used the radio but orders where to stay off the radio in case the colonials intercepted it.

"Driver forward!" ordered Jager over the closed circuit communication which linked him to all four members of his crew.

"Yes, sir." confirmed Private Spiro as he sat in the front of the tank, aside from the window for visual inspection, he had haul mounted cameras which gave him real time 360 degree view of his surroundings however he only displayed 180 of it at any one time. With that the Leopard moved forward as the heavy guns of the nearby Jaguars and the rockets of the Tigers began going off in this full scale mock training.

**Twenty five miles away Lieutenant Lefeld of the American 101****st**** airborne landed with a thud in a grass covered field.** He cut away his parashot and raised his weapon, the standard infinitary rifle 15. The SIR-15 looked like a cross between an G-36 rifle and the old M4 carbine he had carried when he first joined up.

The sky was full of aircraft as paratroopers landed in mass all over the training area.

"Sir." Said one the recruits as he ran up to him carrying the same style of rifle.

"Baker." Answered Lefeld

"Sir, we have a man hurt." Reported Private Baker as Lieutenant Lefeld rushed over to the location only to see the man had fallen hard, so hard that even with his power armor his leg was clearly broken.

"Sorry, sir…I cut my shoot before I landed." Said the injured man as be fought back the pain, some of the more highly trained special force members had gotten into the habit of releasing their parashot's before they hit the ground and let the power armor absorbed the blow from landing. If done right it allows the solider to quickly enter the fight, if it went wrong you got hurt.

"Command this is Fox company leader of 101st we have a man with a broken leg need medical transport." Said Lefeld as he read his location on the map and gave the man's name. Within moment of finishing the man was beamed away in a flash of light.

"Why don't we just beam down sir?" inquired Private Baker "Why jump?"

"Something to do with that they can only transport so much at any one time using beaming technology." Explained Lefeld "And they are going to use the beaming technology to destroy the colonial ships, medical evacuation and special forces. So we and a whole bunch of other people jump. Now lets get moving."

"Yes, sir." confirmed the private as they gathered up the platoon and began their march toward their target objective, a spot in the line where a mock up of a colonial trench had been set up. The artery shells where flying over their heads as the 30 men and women under his command fanned out over the grass land. Suddenly red stun tracers ripped into their line causing all of them to go down. A machine gun was firing training stun rounds at them.

"Move to the left flank him out!" yelled Lieutenant Lefeld to a group of six men as the rest of them set down a base of fire to keep the machine gun and the handful of special forces acting as colonials busy. They moved forced the gunner to focus on them as the six men he had sent out moved in from the left and began to fire into the gun from the side. Once that happened the machine gun fell silent.

"Move out!" ordered Lefeld as he and his platoon moved forward, even as the guns and rockets kept firing.

**Above the heads of the soldiers a flight of Taita fighter bombers flew on a practice bombing run toward a mock up colonial base.** The first bird in the flight had a painting of a scythe wielding woman in red on it's nose and had a small white bomb with a black mushroom cloud in the center painted on it as well.

"Alright let's do this." said Captain Rose Ryan to her flight as the Taita pilot who had dropped the nuclear bomb on Aquaria moved in on attack run. She had been so thankful that she was able to get back into the cockpit after her tour of duty as a PR spokeswomen. She had been to so many places she had lost count but she was thankful to be back in the air and back in her bird. As she made the turn for a bombing run she could see fires burning in the distance from the other attacks. A flight of Ospreys ground attack aircraft was flying slowly below her along with Adar attack choppers all supporting an armored column doing battle with a matching armored column which was standing in for their colonial counterparts.

She pushed the battle below her out of her mind as she lined up to fire on the distance mock colonial airbase. The training missiles launched off the rail of her fighter bomber as well as mock bombs which where so close to missiles with their extendable wings and rocket motor it was sometimes hard to tell them apart from actual missiles.

She wasn't the only bird launching bombs only a 100 miles away a flight of condor heavy bombers had their bomb bays opened as they neared their target, another simulated colonial base.

"Bomb release in three….two…one." said the copilot of Elsa's Revenge as her pilot, the Norway native Andrea lined up the bird, both of them flicked the bomb release as their bomber jumped up in the air as it became lighter as the bombs began to drop out of the belly of the bomber. These where dumb bombs something that wouldn't have been out of place in WW2, they had some advantages over guided smart bombs namely that since they didn't have to fit in all the guidance systems they could carry a larger explosive payload but they were also cheaper to make for the same reason.

"Looks like we did good." Said Andrea as she looked out her window toward a nearby Eagle fighter which was flying escort. The Eagle titled his wings back and forth a sign of goodbye before he and the other Eagles moved off and let the bombers carry on.

**Watching the entire battle from a modified science vessel, General Leong, General O'Neill, General Carter and multiple other high ranking officials observed and took careful note of everything.**

"So far everything is going good." said General Carter as she watched the reports coming in. "The only issue is that there is very little in turns of resistance. We have to expect the colonials will launch counter attacks."

"They will but not until dawn." countered General Leong "The colonials have never launched a night attack since their unification, they always carry out attacks at dawn. Since the Cylons have natural night vision along with the ability to see heat they don't move at night. When night falls they stop, we will use darkness to our advantage."

"We shall see." said General Carter as she watched the dress rehearsal for the invasion moved forward. The Hadrian class ships where making their landing approaches to unload more troops and equipment, owls where landing in different spots on the map, the armored columns where advanced as they should.

"This operation will last a week correct?" inquired O'Neill

"In sense, they spend a week in the field then the troops assigned to take Hypatia and other cities on Tauron will carry out mock city fighting both in the real world and in VR." Stated General Leong as she walked over to the holographic table and switched to a detail map of the capital city of Tauron. "We will not know the true strength of the Colonials on the ground but we are sure that they this will be the staging area for their invasion of Valhalla, we will break the strength of the Colonials using speed and overwhelming firepower. Tauron is their military powerhouse when we take the spirits should break and seeing their invasion fleet smashed will show their leaders that they can't win."

"Going against their strong point concerns me." admitted Carter

"It concerns me, but we have the element of surprise, timing and battle tactics." explained General Leong "We will use the gate beamed in by the Odyssey to move in tanks and ground forces before they even know we are there. Then with speed they have never seen before we will overrun their defenses and crush their forces while they are still getting ready. Lastly timing, we will hit them during one of their greatest holidays."

"Like how the North Vietnams did during the Tet offensive hit during the holiday while forces are on leave and people are celebrating." Stated O'Neill as General Loeng nodded her head. "I admit I like that and I agree that everything else is highly possible but until we see how much of the colonial forces have been moved to Tauron we are not committed."

"Once the time dilation field drops I have recon flights and special operations teams ready to go in." explained General Leong "Multiple Akula class ships are right now carrying out simulated attacks on colonial shipping and we have a large ship battle planned for two weeks out that will bring us to as far as I can take us without actually shooting each other with live rounds."

"Alright, then let's get back to the action on the ground." ordered O'Neill

**4 years since time dilation**

The Odyssey along with 35 Akula class stealth ships waited on the border between the slowed down time which trapped the colonials and the normal time in the rest of the galaxy.

"Should happen any moment." Said the colonel commanding the Odyssey to General O'Neill who stood on the bridge with him. The young colonel eyed the old warrior who even with the life extending technology granted by the Asgard looked old, then he remembered the General was into his seventies now and for most of his life he didn't have the Asgard technology to help keep him looking young.

"Message coming in." reported an officer

"Put it on." Ordered O'Neill as the image of his old friend Teal'c appeared on the screen. Instantly a smile came across the old war hero's face. "Teal'c…have you let your hair grow out?"

"I have not O'Neill." Confirmed Teal'c "The time dilation device is down, are you ready?"

"We are." confirmed O'Neill

'Then let's begin." added Teal'c as the Tau'ri recon forces crossed into Colonial Space.

**Well I hope you liked this chapter, yes I am bring some of the crew from stargate destiny into the story, they may not play a major role right now but I have plans. Now if you remember a month ago I let you all decide what stories you wanted me to write next, a lot of you voted and I am putting you all on notice, this is your LAST week to vote so if you haven't please go do so. Now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	63. Chapter 63

**Chapter 63 The Final Preparations Part 1 **

Space ripped open recon spacecraft called Ravens entered Colonial space, these birds which looked a lot like SR-71 blackbirds with long necks and duel engines exited hyperspace and instantly cloaked. Their pilots moved toward their target locations they passed right through the dradis network set up by the colonials and their only concerns where running into any space traffic. They moved toward their targets and began taking high resolution photos and video of the area assigned to them. Their powerful sensors also read the number of life signs in the area and mapped them, as well as current weather patterns. With their job done they headed out of Colonial space none the wiser that they had ever been there.

Away from the planets a similar thing was going on as the Akula class stealth ships moved toward the colonial shipping lanes to find it rich with targets.

"The colonials have gotten lax." stated Captain Ramius onboard the Akula as the elder Russian submariner stood on the bridge of his ship. He had turned done promotions to stay onboard his ship and now he was in command of not only his ship but the other Akula ships in his attack group.

"Too bad we can't hit them yet." stated his second officer a young woman from Langara. "Orders are to wait, find out their shipping routes and pick out the best spots to hit them in."

"Yes, I know." Said the old warrior as he looked at the massive convoys of ships moving across space with only a handful of warships protecting them.

"The colonials have the right idea to put them into convoys but they don't have enough protection." stated the second officer

"That is a truth, and even if they had they have never seen wolf pack attacks before and we would use that on them." said Ramius as used by the Kreigsmarine in WW2 against the allies in the Atlantis and by the Americans against the Japanese's in the Pacific. It was a rather straight forward tactic a group of submarines, in this case cloaked space ships would surrounded a convoy and attack as one from all directions.

"Sir I have two large contacts moving our way, largest colonial ships I have ever read about." Said the sensor operator.

"Show me." ordered Ramius as the image of the two ships appeared, they were in fact massive almost a half a length longer then a Tau'ri battleship and judging from the readings they had more guns and armor then any Colonial ships but had about the same number of life signs onboard.

"I got their names from it being written on the Haul, it is the Herclese and the Theseus." Reported the operator as he pulled up the zoomed up image of the ships names painted on the side of the ship along with their seals.

"Well that is a Hercules class ship then." Stated Ramius "We knew they where building them and we expected anywhere between 2 and 5 of them to be finished."

"Are they a threat?" inquired his second officer

"Gun wise, yes but still no shields and no sign of a power source strong enough to generate one. It may stand up to Asgard beam weapons better but we can beam in a nuke or given its size two and end it in a few seconds." explained the operator "We can do that now?"

"No, let them pass this is a passive mission we will let others sink them." ordered Ramius "Others will end that ship for us."

**General Leong stood before a holographic table looking at the data coming in from the recon flights, with each passing moment she smiled some more to herself. **On the outside she looked as stone faced as normal but she couldn't have been more pleased, everything had turned out almost as she thought they would.

"Our prime landing zoon is clear." Said her aid a Canadian Air Force colonel as he pointed toward a historical battlefield park located next to what the colonials called "the hill of heroes." It was there during the Cylon war where the 75th infantry division made their grand stand against charging Cylons and saved the capital city of Hypathia which rested behind a ring of small hills. "As we expected they would."

"Yes, it would the same as Americans paving over the Gettysburg's battlefield." Said General Leong before turning back to the map, the colonials did have road making equipment located near to the landing area and it looked as if part of the area had been stacked out with wooden posts to mark where a road would be put in. That wasn't much of a concern to her and it made a lot of sense, there were two large 4 lane highways which flanked either side of the historical battleground. It made sense to build a road between to the two major highways.

"Shall I send in the ground recon teams to gather intelligence." Inquired the aid

"Yes." Confirmed General Leong "And send alerts out I want to strike the moment conditions are right."

"Yes, Ma'am." Confirmed the aid

**The wind whipped pasted Colonel Jager as he sat on top of a family heirloom, an old WW2 BMW R75 motorcycle the same motorcycle that his great grandfather had hidden on the family farm before surrendering to the American Army.** He came to a stop at a traffic light and stopped, placing his foot down onto the roadway, it like almost all the others were not the standard blacktop found on Earth but instead a complex composite which absorbed the heat and channeled it into lights on the side of the road at night and heat to melt snow and ice in the winter. It was also a smart roadway with sensors which could sense accidents and other hazards.

His gas powered motorcycle was one of only a handful of gasoline powered vehicles on the planet, almost all the new civilian vehicles used new fuel cells and the military and construction vehicles used Naquadih fuel rods to provide them the extra power needed.

"Your stop is 13.8 kilometers away, on the right." Said a female voice inside his helmet as the GPS which was integrated into the smart roadway. He leaned back a bit as he waited for the light tapping the side where a bullet hole which family legend said came from an American P-51 mustang fighter strafing attack sat. As he touched it a flight of Eagle fighters roared past them heading toward the nearby airbase which was near the destination of the tank officer. The light turned green German colonel moved down the road he passed through a small town with multiple nations flags hanging outside different homes and in some cases different flags could be seen outside the same house. Outside almost all of them where the blue and silver flag of the Tau'ri and a lot of people where in uniform. He had to stop again at a stop light only this time it was in front of a school, he turned his gaze toward the playground where so many different kids where playing in the warm sunlight. Then as he watched the children he noticed a military Puma recon vehicle carrying out a patrol on the other side of a fence from the school. Some of the children who say the military vehicle waved at them and the man or was it was a women, he couldn't tell at the distance waved back as she stood behind the machine gun.

It took in only a few more minutes to reach the destination, a local bar with of all things a tropical island design, a two fake palm tree made of sheet metal stood outside with the name of the bar hanging between the two trees with a metal monkey hanging from it upside down. He parked his motorcycle and making sure his uniform was in order he walked into the bar.

For being only 2 in the afternoon on a week day the bar was surprising full as the men and women all of them where inform turned to look at the new comer. Some snapped to attention when they saw his rank and others just looked at him stunned as they saw the black collar patches on his uniform which marked him as an armored warrior. All the others in the bar had either the light blue of pilots or the grey patches which marked them as ground crew.

"Heinrich!" yelled a voice as a woman maybe in her early twenties rushed forward and hugged him. There was a lot of nods as people began to guess the relationship between the two of them. Lovers was the first guess, it wouldn't have been the first nor the last time a ranking officer was with a lower ranking one. However the crowd soon guessed correctly as the tanker rubbed the woman's hair in a fashion that all older brothers did to drive their younger sister's crazy and the woman gave a look that a younger sister would give back.

"I am sorry, that I couldn't make it down for your graduation from flight school." Stated Jager to his sister, Anna Jager. "My tank column was carrying out field training."

"I understand, but it would have been nice to have some family there." Stated Anna "Mom is too afraid to us the gate, she doesn't trust it and space travel is flat out, nothing going by space except cargo."

"Well I am sorry, now shall we get a drink and act like brother and sister." inquired Jager

"If I was going to do that, I would have to spy on you whenever you brought a girl home for a study session." laughed Anna who was ten years the junior to her brother. "Allow me to introduce you to my squadron."

"Very good, now does this place have any good beers?" inquired Heinrich

"Yes, but they are better known for their mixed drinks." admitted Anna as she lead her brother across the bar

"A pity." confirmed Jager as they pass a young couple was actually getting married by a chaplain, the bride and the groom both in uniforms with only handful of flowers to mark the event of anything really special.

"They are even doing it bars now?" complained Hana as she looked at the couple, one of them was Spanish he recognized the flag on the woman's uniform and the other was from Lanagara.

"Maybe you haven't heard Lieutenant but the government put in new bonuses for married couplies after the war." explained a woman's voice as Jager turned to see a shorter woman, maybe a cm shorter then his own short sister standing there. She had deep black hair cut so that it could be quickly pulled back into a short pony tail.

"Captain Gorbunova." Said Hana as she snapped to attention. "Allow me to introduce my brother Colonel Jager."

"Colonel." Said the Russian Adder pilot "You have one skilled pilot in your family."

"I thank you Captain but please if it is all the same to you, let us drop the ranks I am here because I couldn't make it to my sister's graduation." Explained Jager "I would like not to be in the military for as long as we are in this building, I recommend we get some drinks, I of course shall pay."

"Very well, you may call me Ludmila." Said the Ukrainian adder pilot as she offered hand.

"And you may call me Heinrich, now I recommend we send my sister to get the drinks." Advised Heinrich

"What…why?" inquired Hana

"Because we outrank you." explained Ludmila "Rank still holds some importance."

"And I am paying." added Heinrich as his sister lowered her head as her brother pulled out a couple of bills.

"Alright." complained Hana as she moved off to get drinks.

**The SGC wasn't as busy as it normally would have been, everyone's focus was upcoming operation against the colonials there wasn't as many teams going through the Stargate to explore because the Stargate was being used to transport items for the war.** This was both a pain and a benefit for General Carter, while it meant that she was nothing more than a transport hub it allowed her to focus on some of her pet projects that she hadn't had time to work on.

"General, Doctor Rush is here to see you." Said a voice over the intercom built into her desk.

"Very well." Confirmed the General as she stood up, the door opened as the man who had been and still was one of the smartest men she had ever met walked into the room.

"Doctor Rush how are you enjoying being back on Earth?" inquired Carter "I am sure you have found some of the improvements we have made to your liking."

"Yes." Confirmed Rush "However when can I return to Destiny, the team you are sending through the Supergate to it should have a time table for bringing the ship back online."

Carter lowered her head, she knew this was coming but didn't like it.

"Doctor Rush, our teams have found that the Destiny was lacking repair for so long when the ancients didn't board it that it is unsafe to fly." Stated General Carter as Doctor Rush gave her a look of pure hate.

"You have seen the data, the hidden meaning in the background radiation that the Ancients found!" yelled Rush as he throw his hands in the air. "And you are giving up on it?"

"On the ship Destiny yes, on its mission no." stated Carter as Doctor Rush paused for a moment and looked at her.

"You are going to launch a new ship? That will take millions of years to reach where destiny is and you can't fit a ship larger than the puddle jumper through the wormhole created by the two supergates." stated Rush

"No, we can't fit a ship capable of making the trip through the milkway supergate but we have a plan for this." Stated Carter as she spun one of the computer monitors around to show a blueprint of an ORI supergate. "We have spent years studying the supergate and once this war with the Colonials is finished we will begin building a supergate in the Pegasus galaxy."

"So that you can send ships between the two galaxies like the ORI did with our galaxy and theirs?" inquired Rush

"Yes, but just like the stargate network creates links between different worlds the supergate can link galaxies." Explained Carter "From everything we have been able to uncover there can only be one Supergate in each galaxy and…"

"And if we get closer to where destiny is we can open a supergate large enough to send a new ship?" inquired Rush with boy like hope in his eyes, that hope disappeared in a flash. "To get close enough to destiny to send a ship through capable of finishing the mission would require getting three fourths to it's location at least. That would take thousands of years."

"For a whole ship yes, but what if we sent only sections of a ship through the gate and reassembled it in space?" inquired Carter "And say that the largest of these pieces where only three times the size of a puddle jumper. That is as small as we can go with the key parts or else we would just use the gate here."

"Then that would cut the required distance by…" started Rush

"By enough to get the high command to agree to do it." Finished Carter as she tapped her screen and a new image appeared. The blue prints for a ship five times larger than a Missouri class battleship. "This is the Prometheus deep recon and exploration ship, a little bigger its name shake."

"And this is the one that will take the place of the Destiny?" inquired Rush

"No, it's sister ship the Destiny II will take that honor but in order for that ship to carry on it's mission the Prometheus will need to do it's job and that is where you come in." stated Carter "These two ships are still on the drawing board, I want you to take command of the science teams working on them and once the war is over you will oversee the construction of the Prometheus and if you want to you can head out on its mission to a galaxy the Asgard called Freki and which the ancients had listed as Spiral Galaxy-246, it is about 130 million light years away from Earth and is in the perfect location to reach Destiny."

"130 million light years how long will it take to get there?" inquired Rush as he did the math in his head, it took 14 days to cover the 3 million light years between the edge of the Milkway galaxy to reach the Pegasus galaxy.

"Without ZPMs it will take the Prometheus over a year and a half to reach the galaxy and a couple months to build the supergate." stated Carter "I am trying to get a ZPM released for you but command can't seem to make up their mind on what they want to do with them but they don't want to commit them to anything yet."

"Why don't we just dial one of their gates with the super gate and go it that way?" inquired Rush "The ancients placed gates all the way out where Destiny was why not closer?"

"That is the thing, the records show that they did but we have not been able to make contact with any gates in that galaxy. Not a single one, it is almost as if they have been removed or all buried." Explained Carter "A maned ship is what is needed and luckily command agreed to it. Now will you head up the mission?"

"Yes, as long as once we are able to send the Destiny II through the supergate that I go on the mission." Said Rush

"Of course, now we need to go over some details." Explained Carter as suddenly her phone rang, she picked it up and listened for a moment, before looking up at Rush.

"I understand, I will be right there." Stated Carter as she ended the call. "Sorry Doctor Rush, but duty requires me somewhere else, I will order someone to take you to the team working on the ships designs."

"That is fine." Confirmed Rush as he wondered what he would find first in this Freki galaxy and then once he got onboard the new Destiny.

**Sunrise was still a couple of hours away as a knock at the door caused Doctor Jenny Oldstone to walk toward the door dressed only in a white silk robe which hugged her body so well that it would have caused most men and some women to want to rip it off.** She checked the peak hole to see a man dressed in a blue uniform but it wasn't a colonial military uniform but instead the hotel staff uniform. She opened the door as the man pushed a cart into the room with two doomed plates.

"Breakfast, ma'am." Said the man eyeing her when he thought she wouldn't notice. She paid a tip and was ready to push the cart into the bedroom when she saw a small letter on the cart. It had her name on it as well as her room number, she ripped it open to find what on the surface appeared to be an innocent letter from her sister, but hidden in the message was an order from the Cylon command.

"Well this morning just got interesting." Stated Jenny as the number 6 model human Cylon moved into the bedroom to find her target/lover busy working on the tie.

"I hate these fraking things, it would so much easier if I could just go without it but…" complained Baltar as Jenny moved and stood before him dressed only in the soft silk bed robe.

"Allow me." said Jenny as she went to work on the tie, he had to wear for the news interview. Since he was going to be interviewed live on an Early Morning show as a member of the Colonial RND talking about the latest technologies that would retake Kobol, he had to wear a tie.

"Listen, there is something you need to do." said Jenny

"What?" inquired Baltar as Jenny worked the tie with skill.

"You need to tell the public that this war is over and that the Tau'ri will win." stated Jenny as Baltar looked at her stunned, "You need to tell them the truth, because whoever tells them the truth now will be in the best position when this is all over."

"Are you crazy, can you imagine what the government will do to me?" inquired Baltar

"Nothing." Stated Jenny "The Tau'ri are coming and when they come they will not be able to hide the truth anymore."

"The Tau'ri haven't been seen for 3 months, what makes you think they will come now?" inquired Baltar as Jenny smiled and moved over to the bed they had shared the night before.

"Because they are finally ready." Stated Jenny with a smile as she crossed her legs. "See Gaius you were actually really close with your whole the Tau'ri trapped the colonies inside a shield, it is just you failed to grasp one thing. It wasn't just a shield it was a bubble of time, the Tau'ri trapped you and everyone else on the colonies inside a field where time was moving slower then the outside universe."

Gaius paused for a moment, as his mind began to process the idea.

"The list distortions where from the stars moving not from looking through a shield." stated Baltar "That is possible but…"

"While 3 months have passed for us inside 4 years have passed outside, 4 years that the Tau'ri could build ships, 4 years that they could produce weapons, 4 years to train soldiers, 4 years to plan their attack." stated Jenny as Baltar's eyes widened. "And what do you think will happen to the colonies when the Tau'ri strike back?"

"We will lose." confirmed Baltar "But how…how could you know this you can't be a Tau'ri spy, we have been working together since before the Tau'ri arrived."

"Yes, and who did you think put in the deactivation order into the colonial defense mainframe." Said Jenny with a grin which would have normally tell him he was in for some fun but not today.

"You work for the Cylons?" inquired Baltar as Jenny laughed.

"No, I am a Cylon." Admitted Jenny as Baltar blinked. "Now you have three options, either A, you tell your government what is going on and no one will believe you until it is too late. B, you do nothing and you gain nothing or C, you tell the Colonies the Truth and after the war we rise to a level of influence inside the reformed colonial government that is to die for."

"We?" inquired Baltar

"Yes, we don't you think I know you where looking for wedding rings." stated Jenny "You burn through women in days maybe even hours but you have been with me for over a year."

"And what if I tell them you are a Cylon." Inquired Baltar as Jenny grinned before standing up and moving to her suitcase. It took only a moments and she pulled out a sexy little outfit with a Cylon mask.

"I shall obey, everything you say Master." said Jenny in an sexy voice through the mask, she pulled the mask off and looked at it. "I must admit as a Cylon I find this kind of offensive, the Sagittarons are always bitching about porn staring the Lords of Kobol so I guess I can't take too much offense but it does provide a great cover."

"So now you are blackmailing me?" inquired Baltar

"No, blackmailing means I am hurting you, I am just giving you all the facts you and explain why that tell them I am a Cylon will not work." Countered Jenny "Now all the options I told you about remain."

"And what are you going to do?" inquired Baltar

"Depends on what you want." admitted Jenny "This may be a little bit of surprise but I do love you and I would say yes if you still decide to ask me to marry you but if you want me to leave I will do that as well."

"Ok, explain this to me are you just a robotic frame with flesh over it? What are you?" inquired Baltar

"I am a clone body with memories downloaded into my body." explained Jenny "You didn't have sex with a machine, well not fully."

"Ok…and if I do tell the people the truth what will happen?" inquired Baltar

"Worst case, you are protected by the other Cylons and spared from whatever hell the Tau'ri do to you, best case how does President Gaius Baltar sound?" inquired Jenny as Baltar thought about it, his options where very limited. Either he could expose her as a Cylon and get brushed off as a prevent with a Cylon slave fetish or he could do what she said and get more power and keep the amazing sex.

"I would need a first lady if I am president." said Baltar as Jenny smiled before disrobing in one quick motion sending the silk robe to the floor.

**The sun was just rising as former Viper pilot now turned POW of the Tau'ri Lieutenant James Chontos woke up and headed out the door of the barracks that had become home for the past 4 months.** It was strange, for the 1st month the Tau'ri had taken a back seat on the prisoners they were there but they really didn't do anything to them. They paid them to cut down trees and other none war related material, then suddenly they simply pulled up and left all of their prisoners. They said some nonsense about putting the planet in a time lock like they were doing to the rest of the 12 colonies but no one really believed them. The word going around the camp was that the Tau'ri needed soldiers on the battlefield against the Colonies so they couldn't spare people to guard prisoners.

The Tau'ri had left them with more food than they could ever want and they had a handful of doctors among the POWs and the power generators where all solar based and worked fine. The Tau'ri had also left them with boxes of premade housing for more prisoners with orders to have them ready in 3 months. When the Tau'ri left there was debate in the camp if they should build the buildings that the Tau'ri had asked them to set up. In the end they did but some refused to take part in it.

James walked past a pregnant woman, judging from the rank on her uniform she was a deck hand on a battlestar. James laughed a bit, that had thrown the Tau'ri for a loop when the first woman came to them right before they left with news that she was pregnant. From what he had gathered having men and women serving in front line duties was very new to the Tau'ri and was something they hadn't dealt with. They had tried to keep the two sexes separated and failed and in the end gave up and left them.

The sounds of engines caused the entire camp to turn toward the road, at first no one could really believe what they where seeing. A column of armored vehicles where moving down the dirt road, the eight wheeled vehicles wasn't as heavy as the colonial version but it moved much faster and quieter. A figure was sticking out of one of the hatches in the first vehicle the machine gun right in front of her. Behind that first vehicle where others only these had open tops and had soldiers in clear view weapons up and ready to be aimed at any moment. The Blue and Silver Tau'ri flag flapped from the head vehicle as it came to a stop almost right in front of James.

"Well did you miss us?" laughed the man standing out of the hatch, it took James a moment to realize he had seen this man before only 3 months before when the Tau'ri left, but now he looked older.

"Where have you been? Why do you look older?" inquired James as the Tau'ri solider laughed.

"We told you we would be putting you in a time bubble for 3 months like we were doing with your home worlds." laughed the guard as it hit James and the other nearby Colonial POWs that the Tau'ri where not lying, they really had somehow slow down time.

Brother and sister where enjoying the time they were having together.

"So you enjoying being an Adder pilot?" inquired Heinrich to his little sister.

"Yes, I just wished that my unit had gone up against you in a training mission." Said Hana with a grin, "My Adder attack helicopter verse you in your little tank."

"Little..." Chuckled Heinrich

"I remind you, you did paint a tank with wings on it on your Adder." Countered Luidmila as suddenly both Heinrich and Luidmilla's phone began to go off, they picked it up and saw a simple text message which caused a chill to go down their spines.

"What is it?" inquired Hana as Heinrich took a long pull on his drink finishing it.

"Yours as well?" inquired Heinrich as Luidmila nodded her head. With it Heinrich stood up and put his cap back on. "I need to get back to my command."

"We both have work to do." Confirmed Ludimila

"What is going on?" inquired Hana as Heinrich looked at his sister who was also standing up.

"I am afraid we both got alert orders to get our units ready to move out." Explained Heinrich as he pulled his sister into a hug and whispered something he wasn't suppose to into her ear. "The invasion begins in 72 hours."

He pulled back, well aware that Ludimila had heard or suspected that he had told her.

"Good luck and good hunting little sister." Said Colonel Jager before looking at the Russian woman. "Please keep an eye on her."

"I will do my best, good luck to you. Your armor is going to need it." Stated Ludimila as she looked at the unit patch on his arm, if she was as informed as he was then she knew that his unit would be among the first on the ground and there for the first into battle.

"We will all need luck." Stated Jager as he smiled at his sister before turning and walking out the door.

**Well I hope you liked this chapter, I am closing the poll on which stories you would like me to write. I have decided for the most part which stories I plan to do, I am going to write a Stargate/Mass Effect story with maybe a short Stargate/World War series. I think you all can see that I have decided to pretty much move the Mass Effect Galaxy to this new Galaxy that the Tauri are going to and I hope no one is too upset at the idea. Since I like to write two stories at a time I plan to write a Naruto story but I haven't decided which one I will write yet. Now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	64. Chapter 64

**Chapter 64** **The Final Preparations Part 2**

The sound of a basketball bouncing off the concrete filled the air as a 5 on 5 game between different companies of the American 101st airborne, Chinese 15th airborne and the 8th parachute engineer unit from Italy. So far in the tournament the Americans had the most teams advancing but it was very close. Nearby the massive pelican transports which would be carrying them into battle sat on the runway along with Owls and a few Eagle fighters which called the base home.

"So did you see Colbert last night, he had this joke about building giant robots and dropping them onto the colonials." Said a private as he took a drink of pop as he watched the rather close game between the American 101st and the Italian 8th.

"Did he use some clips from Japanese Anime to show his point?" inquired his friend as he finished his pop and tossed it toward a nearby garbled can.

"Pacific Rim 2 actually and you should throw that into the recycle bin." Said the first one.

"Why it all gets broken down by one of those Asgard beam things and turned into something else." Said the second

"Because they still have people separate them as a form of punishment." explained the first as he spotted and officer walking up toward the game. He walked right into the middle of the game grabbing the ball and putting it under his arm.

"Sorry to interrupt the game but we just got put on combat alert." stated the officer as everyone's heart skipped a beat and a chill ran down their spins. "So get your gear ready and report to hanger 2 at 1830 hours, the cooks are preparing a meal for us. Dismissed."

"And the condemned man ate a hearty meal." Said the first paratrooper as everyone moved off to get their items together. It didn't take long, everyone had all their items already together and it was a simple triple check everything. Then finally they moved to the hanger where the cooks where busy preparing a huge meal, it had almost anything a person could want. Perfectly cooks Steaks, chicken, smoked pork and fresh vegitables and fruits. At the far end were massive cakes with multiple flavors of ice cream. They all knew what it meant but still they went to eat the meal.

"It will happen soon." Said multiple people in line as they went to get the meal which will sustain them through the coming storm of battle.

"**Welcome back to Morning on Caprica on this wonderful Victory Celebration week." Said the preppy news woman as she sat on a tall stool inside of the morning news show studio. **Morning on Caprica was the most popular morning news show on 7 of the 12 colonies of Kobol and the format of the show wouldn't have seen that different then morning shows watched by multiple Tau'ri citizens. The only major difference was that they opened and closed every show with a prayer, that was partly because it played well with the more religious and mostly because it allowed them to get away with more stuff then what the religious elements on some worlds would allow.

"Now, allow me to introduce you to Doctor Baltar one of the most brilliant minds in the colonies and one of the many scientist helping us win this civil war against our wayward cousins." Stated the news woman as Baltar sat on a matching stool beside her, in front of them was a long table with multiple little items ranging from newly designed rifle scopes to computer systems. "Now I know you can't go into detail about everything you and others like you are working on but we do have a small collection of some of the items that our men and women in uniform will be using shortly to bring victory to us all."

"Of course I am so happy to be here celebrating our victory over the Cylon 40 years ago." Said Baltar not adding that he had been sleeping with a cylon for almost a year.

"And soon we will have another holiday when we win this war and bring Earth back where they belong." Said the reporter as she repeated something she had been saying in one form or another since the start of the war. Only instead of the normal smile or conformation Baltar placed his hand under his chin and paused for a moment.

"This war is as good as over already." said Baltar as the news women smiled as Baltar's smile disappeared. "Sorry…I can't do this the people need to know this war is over, we lost it a long time ago."

"What?" asked the reporter stunned.

"We lost this war the moment our battlestars appeared over Valhalla, it was loss the moment our leaders ordered those ships to enter Tau'ri space." Started Baltar as he shook his head. "I have seen what they are capable of and it is far more than anything we can hope to match."

The news anchor just like everyone else who was watching live couldn't believe what they were hearing, here was the most brilliant man in the colonies saying they have already loss the war. A war that all the government officials and everything they had heard on the news said they were not only going to win but had all but won already.

"I can't lie anymore, the Tau'ri have us outmatched in almost every way. Their ships outclass ours, their fighters are the same and they have technology we can only dream about." said Baltar in a tone of voice that would belong to a doctor telling someone that their loved one had just died. "We have all been feed a lie, a lie that we have this war as good as won. The Tau'ri could crush us at any moment and there is only one reason why they haven't."

"You are a defeatist Doctor Baltar." said the anchor

"I am a realist and the only reason why the Tau'ri haven't flat out crushed us is because they needed time to build up their forces." stated Baltar "We never forced them out, they left on their own to build up their forces and once they are ready they will come back and it will be over once and for all."

"Well Doctor Baltar." said the reporter as she noticed the two armed men in colonial army police uniforms walk into the studio "And we will remember what you said here today and when our victory comes we will make sure everyone knows how you betrayed the 13 tribes of Kobol."

"I pray to the Lords of Kobol." said the none religious Baltar "That you do remember what I say, because if we don't do something soon then when this is all over there may not be any 12 colonies of Kobol left."

**A small convoy of 5 SUVs passed between two statues of warriors in ancient Kobol armor of bronze chest pieces, chested helmets and armored skirts. **One of the statues, the woman held a long spear in one hand with a shield in the other, the other was a man with a short sword and a matching shield. The SUVs moved up the road toward matching statues only with the weapons in each of the gender statues hands. Here a bronze gate stood with the seal of the 12 colonies of Kobol and of Taron on it. Four honor tomb guards stood before the gate as the lead SUV came to a stop in front of the gate. To the amazement of the driver the gate didn't open, cursing the driver stepped out of the SUV and walked toward one of the guard.

"Why aren't you opening the gate?" inquired the driver "We have a group of veterans from the 75th here to visit the battle site."

"Sorry, but the hill and the surrounding battlefield is closed." Said the Guard as another man, a larger rounder man in a business suit stepped out of the passenger side and moved toward the guard.

"Solider." Said the man, since all members of the honor guard wore no rank he couldn't tell his rank. "Do you know who I am…I am the mayor of Hypathia."

"Sorry sir, but I can't let you or anyone else in." said the guard as another guard walked up, by the way the other guards acted it was clear he was their ranking officer.

"Mr. Mayor I am sorry but the entire area is closed." said the higher ranking guard.

"And why is that? These man and women are veterans who fought on this hill to save the capital of Tauron and maybe the whole planet from the Cylons let them in." said the mayor as the younger guard looked at the higher one.

"Sir, I can't let you in and officially I can't tell you why but…" said the guard "Let's say there is a high ranking VIP coming in and the entire area is on lock down."

"The only person who could do that is…" said the mayor as his eyes widened "The President, President Adar is coming here?"

"Sir, I can't confirm that." said the higher ranking guard with a wink "However I would make sure your schedule is clear tomorrow I am sure the veterans will likely be welcomed as well."

"I will explain that to them." said the mayor as he walked away and head down the line to each SUV explaining what was going on before the SUVs turned and headed away.

"God, if they hadn't left I would have opened fire on them." Said the Delta force operator to his British SAS counterpart as they stood before the gates to what was basically the colonial version of Arlington national cemetery just outside of Washington DC. Behind them in the guard house lied the dead honor guards which had the bad luck of being on duty when they had arrived.

"Well my American friend we don't have too now." said the SAS member as he pulled out a small radio. "We are clear set it up."

The Colonial War Cemetery and historic battlefield covered multiple acres of flat open land which ran up to the ring of hills which surrounded the capital of Tauron, Hypathia. Hypathia and the low hills which surrounded it on three sides with a river which ran out to a small inland sea had stood against multiple cylon attacks and had only fallen three times in the long bloody history of Tauron. Since it had the best natural defenses on the mostly flat open fields of Tauron it was the first major target of invasion, there was only four easy ways into the city. Two where tunnels under the hills which had been rejected because of the tight bottle neck, the other was the bridge over the river which happened to have a major base they would have to fight through. That left the gap in the hills which passed right beside the historical battlefield and the cemetery. Special forces had been inserted by Owl and in the course of a handful of quick strikes had taken the hill which the Cylons had failed to take. It had been a slaughter, the honor guard while armed where dressed in parade formation uniforms and hadn't expected a fight when the Tau'ri special forces moved in and killed them with silenced weapons and tactics they had no experience against.

While the hill was falling other Tau'ri special forces had moved into the battlefield historic park which covered almost 2,000 acres of land had been left almost in the same state as it had been when the Cylons had fought there. The trees had grown back and the blast holes had been filled in but the small towns which had once been there had been left in their battle scared state so that future generations could see them. The large abounded historic site right in front of the only natural land route into the city was a perfect spot. Teams of special forces had quickly cleared out the park rangers and replaced them with themselves in their uniforms. They made sure the area was clear of all colonials and then they began to set up the key to their plan. On the outside, they looked like nothing more than short 10 foot tall poles with a box the size of a large cooler however once they were all set up and linked together a cloaking field covered the area. This field didn't make the land disappeared but it would make anything that was sitting on the land say a tank or a solider be unseen by anyone looking into the field. Moments after the field was up a flash of light filled the air as a Stargate appeared in the middle of flat open field.

"Gate is down." reported the operator on the ground to the cloaked Odyssey which had beamed the gate down at it's max range. From there it took only a few moments before the chevrons on the gate began to glow as it spun. Moments after the 7th was locked a whirlpool of energy shot out before it settled down. Seconds after it did, the first regular soldiers came out followed by the first Leopard III tank and other armored vehicles as they began their invasion.

**Four hours later and only 16 miles away from the invasion point a line of colonial soldiers in full dress uniform marched down the grand avenue in Hypathia. **Lines of uniformed soldiers marched down the grand avenue pass the temple of Ares and his statue. Standing along the roadway making sure that none of the throng of people standing along the sidewalk watching the soldiers march past in full parade uniforms where other soldiers in normal battle uniforms. Among their numbers where two young women from Virgon, Private Acacia and Private Medea stood in their uniforms with rifles slung over their shoulders watching the parade go by. A sense of joy and celebration filled the air, for the first time in history the celebrating marking the end of the cylon war fell on the holy feast day honoring Ares the Lord of War and Tauron was his world and they were partying.

"So we didn't end up marching but we got one franken good place to watch everything." Said Acacia as she watched a Pallas roll on by before making the slight turn at the statue of Ares which would take them over the bridge to the Hypathia base where the parade would end.

"True, and once this is done we have to walk around basically being cops until after all the good parties have already started." counted Medea as a column of soldiers marched past them with their rifles out and the bayonet extended so that the metal reflected the light of the sinking sun off them.

"Please all the really good parties don't start until after midnight and we get off before that and all we have to do is hand off our weapons to a duty station and we can go out and party." Countered Acacia only to have her friend look down at her uniform, she wore the olive-green pants and long sleeve shirt which was standard for all soldiers with her bullet proof vest over it. A tan belt held multiple supplies, mostly more bullets for her rifle, she had black combat boots on.

"Not really stuff to go out and party in." countered Medea

"I got you covered." Said Acacia as she tapped her pack, only a handful of the soldiers on police duty had messed with carrying their combat bags. "I got a change of clothes for both of us, shoes and everything else we will need for a night on the town and Mike from C company said he will take this back to base for us."

"Well then, lets enjoy the parade while we can and then we can think about all the places we want to go after." Stated Medea with a huge smile as they watched a Pallas tank rumble past them followed by a column of soldiers marching in perfect unison with the light of the sun flashing off their polished bayonets. She turned to where Sectary of Defense Cain, the mayor and multiple guests sat on a raised platform in front of the statue of Areas which marked the spot where the road split off into two parts. Behind that was a tringle shaped building with a glass front which stood out against all the stone which was common in the buildings but she could see a news woman she had only seen on TV sitting there with some of her cohosts from Taron Rising the second biggest morning news show in the colonies after Morning on Caprica, since they were based in that building it made sense that they would cover the celebrations from there. "The Tau'ri have no idea what they are going to face when we come for them."

**On a Valhalla members of the 101****st**** airborne where doublechecking their equipment as they prepared themselves. **They were all dressed in the standard combat space combat uniform, skin tight BDU which reminded most of them of wetsuits only with interviewed bullet resistance material. Over that they placed bullet proof vests which contained multiple pouches for storing different items. They also had elbow, knee pads and groin protection. They all wore jump combat boots and had full gloves on, once they put on their full faced helmet and attached the airline which ran under the suit they could survive over four hours in space and be perfectly fine. Next they put on their combat power suits and field backpack. Over it all they put on their parachute in total each man or woman gained almost 90 pounds on their normal body weight. Everything was in a camouflage pattern designed and tested to blend in to the savannah like grasslands which was the largest biome on the grassland world of Tauron.

"Make sure you double check everything." ordered Lieutenant Lefeld as he made sure everyone under his command was ready. One of his men was double checking his secondary weapon a pump action shotgun while a handful of others where off to the restroom. Others were playing cards and still others where adding extra weapons to their supplies, they found places for more ammo or a knife or two. He was about to double check his own gear or go over to where a Priest was giving last rites, it didn't matter what faith the person was they were going to speak to God. He paused and looked as the Priest knelt beside a man holding a muslin prayer book and together they prayed for a moment before the priest moved on to another solider. It was then that his personal computer beeped. He looked down to the computer which was strapped to the inside of his arm and could go to the heads up display in his helmet.

He tapped the email only to have a video file appear, he saw at once that it was General O'Neill the head of the Tau'ri, he looked old but there was a strength behind those eyes a strength a strength that gave him a simple lieutenant who had never meet him strength as well.

"Solider, Sailors, Airmen of the Tau'ri tonight is the night, this is the day we have been training for, this is the hour where we break the colonials and repay them for the lives they took on the fields of Valhalla in that nuclear attack. Through human history we have known countless battles, we have fought against each other for so long, we have spilled each other's blood but those days are now behind us. We are united together against a common enemy, an enemy we will now take this war too." said O'Neill "I will not lie to you your task will not be an easy one, the enemy you are facing are well equipped and well trained. You will bring the destruction of the colonial war machine and make sure they will never attempt to bring destruction back to our home. The hopes and prayers of countless billions of people across multiple worlds are with you, we will accept nothing less than full victory. Now good luck, God speed…"

The General paused for a moment unsure if he should go on with the official speak or add something.

"And give them hell." Finished O'Neill with a smile on his face which said he would rather have been suiting up to go into battle with them.

The video ended as Lieutenant Lefeld smiled, all around him people were looking up from their own computers, they had watched the speech.

"Let's get those Bastards!" yelled someone in the distance as a yell went up from the paratroopers as they moved toward the massive Pelican transport which would take them into battle.

All over Valhalla ships where being loaded up, tanks and other vehicles where rolling onto Hadrian class transports. Fully armed troops marched toward smaller ships about the size of shipping containers with ramps on the front, these landing ships would carry the bulk of the soldiers to the ground like the Higgins boats where used in WW2 to land troops. These much smaller ships where then loaded onto small half size Hadrian class ships for their ride to the colonies because they didn't have hyper drivers. Other troops were loaded up into Owls, for their ride to the colonies.

**A colonial probe appeared on the far edge of the Valhalla system and began to take multiple photos of Valhalla before disappearing in another flash of light back to colonial space.**

**Down on Valhalla Colonel Jager stood up in the copula of his tank all around him as far as the eye could see where tanks and other armored vehicles. **They sat in perfectly straight rows and columns waiting for the Stargate to arrive. The Stargate appeared in a flash of light in a premade trench located in front of each column of tanks. It activated and as one the column of tanks and armored vehicles rolled forward disappearing through the gate. The gate stayed opened for it max time and by then the entire column of vehicles had moved through the gate. Then it simply moved down the line of the trench to the new position in front of the next armored column. This was repeated for multiple times until it finally moved to right in front of Jager.

"Move out Private Spiro." Ordered Jager as his tank moved forward passing through the eye of the gate just as it was designed to do and how he had practiced multiple times before. Only this time instead of finding himself in a training center or even on Mars like they had done in training he found himself in the middle of a large grassy field on the colonial world of Tauron. Darkness was falling but light was still visible on the horizon, allowing him to see the massive amount of armored vehicles, soldiers and pure firepower setting up to give the colonials one horrible night.

"Please God, keep the cloak up." Prayed Jager as he looked toward one of the larger towers which generated a cloaking field that kept the armored forces hidden. If they were spotted now, they would be slaughtered by the fire from the massive colonial fleet which protected Tauron. Jager didn't have to order Spiro to the right spot instead he followed the directions on his heads up display and the soldiers who were acting as traffic cops. A flight of colonial vipers flew over them but they were in perfect formation, this caused the Tau'ri to look up and the nearby Cougar APC with Anti-air missiles followed them as they passed by.

"They are having a military parade, aren't they?" inquired his gunner

"Should be finishing one." confirmed Jager as they crossed into what passed for a wheat field on Tauron. When the tank stopped, they were on the edge of the cloaking field with a 50 ft. of wheat in front of them before they reached a flat open field which separated the field from the 4 lane highway. Civilian traffic moved back and forth on the highway along with some military vehicles from a nearby base but none of the people saw them. "Now we wait the attack is schedule to begin in 3 hours."

**On Valhalla night was also falling over the main land mass as Eagle fighters, Condor bombers, Taita fighter bombers, Owl transports and Pelican large transports took off from bases spread out all over the world. **As they took off the defense force which was staying behind stood on the edges of the runways waving as the massive force took the sky before rocking out into space.

"My God will you take a look at that," said Andrea as she looked out her condor bomber window at the massive invasion fleet which was breaking orbit around Valhalla and heading out of the system. Once they were clear they would enter hyperspace for their three hour journey to Tauron.

Space was packed with ships, the massive battleships and carriers where surrounded by the smaller Daedalus class battle cruisers and Galahad class destroyers, they would be the first group into battle followed by the invasion force which had more battleships and other ships protecting the Hadrian class transports and Pelicans which would carry out the actual landing. Andrea flew her bomber which was one of hundreds if not thousands matching condor bombers.

**On board the flag ship, the USS Missouri General Leong watched the massive fleet broke orbit and head out.** The attack fleet of 40 battleships, 29 carriers plus Daedalus class battle cruisers, Galahad class destroyers and almost countless numbers of fighters, bombers and transports all head toward the spot where they would make the jump to hyperspace.

"Ma'am all ships are reporting in and all fleets are moving forward on schedule we will reach the hyperspace jump off point in 5 minutes." reported the General in charge of the Missouri.

"Thank you." said general Leong as she took a breath and looked at the holographic map which showed the largest fleet ever gathered in modern history, over 1500 vessels most of whom where small lightly armed landing ships which were full of soldiers and weapons. Over 6 million soldiers, sailors, airman and marines were on their way to Tauron and a violent confrontation with the Colonial invasion force gathering there. The fleet was separated into two main forces, first the strike force which held the bulk of the warships would attack and destroy the Colonial fleet and then the bulk of the fleet which was made up of Hadrian class heavy transports and pelican transports with a protective screen would move in to land the soldiers and equipment they carried. It was going to be a bad day for the 12 colonies of Kobol.

**Originally this chapter and the last where one long chapter but I decided to split them up. Well I hope you liked this chapter, the invasion fleet has been launched and the war is at the door. Now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	65. Chapter 65

**Chapter 65 The Final Hour**

Darkness was quickly falling over the fields of Tauron as Tau'ri forces kept moving out of the Stargate and fanned out over the area hidden by the cloaking field. Tanks and armored forces moved to near the edge while artillery stayed back. The only artillery which moved forward where the forces which climbed the hill moving past the defenses that the colonial 75th unit had fought and died to hold against the Cylons only to stop among the trees which covered the hill. Some of the artillery units being put into place where traditional towed field guns that had to be set up as they set up their gun's others moved shells into the underground catacombs which contained the cremated remains of countless numbers of colonial warriors.

A command and control center had been set up in one of the catacombs with forward artillery observers already picking out targets in the city of Hypatia which sat well within the range of their guns. Still others where setting up commination systems to monitor the Colonial military channels to make sure they haven't been discovered. So far everything was going good, the colonials had no hint that they were there and instead the only thing going over the communication channels where orders about what units get off duty and when.

"They are in for a rude awakening." said a General as he studied the roll out map of the soon to be battlefield, it wasn't a holographic map but it was interactive. It was basically a roll out touch screen which had a detailed map of all current Tau'ri ground forces as well as colonial. While it showed the units as different symbols instead of individuals, an icon showing a tank said armored forces where there and other symbols stood in for different units. The Tau'ri forces where in blue, the friendly color while colonial were in red, at the moment there was a lot of red but they had no idea that the Tau'ri where there.

"I want mortar teams set up along this line of trees." ordered the General as he marked the location on the map. The orders where instantly sent out to the teams who went to carry out the order, they were actually going to use the persevered mortar spots that the 75th colonial unit used against the Clyons was going to be used by the Tau'ri. The general lifted his eyes off from the map and down a corridor, from his location he could just see through the entrance and out through a grove of trees toward the city. The lights of the multiple homes and other buildings of the city where aglow in the twilight of the warm spring air, the main source of those lights was the grand avenue where the military parade was just finishing up and soon the traditional raising of the flag would take place.

"I want all teams in position and ready to fire before the fleet arrives." Ordered the General "Are the Tigers in position?"

"Sir, here they are." Said an aid as he tapped the screen on the map to show that a column of Tiger mobile rocket launchers where currently climbing the hill to get into firing position. A protective ring of infantry was already in place and the attacking force which would drive into the city was nearing its jump off point. Everything was going according to the schedule the only thing that wasn't was a battery of Jaguar mobile artillery and some fix howitzers where actually ahead of schedule and already in place.

"Good." Said the General as he checked the corner of the map which showed up to the moment arrival of the forces through the gate. The armored forces in the 1st wave where almost totally through and the foot soldiers was on schedule, once they actually started shooting and grew their beach head they would bring in more armored and fight forces from Valhalla. He looked down at the map again to see that a wing group making up a total of 30 Adder attack choppers rested in a grassy field ready to fight moments before the Tau'ri guns started firing. The other flights would come through the gate when they started shooting and once they captured a nearby base they would use it as a base on Tauron.

**Above the heads of the Tau'ri sat the powerful Colonial defense fleet, since Tauron was the center of a massive military build up there was more colonial warships in orbit then over any other, over three thousand warships currently stationed over the world.** They were positioned in three rings which surrounded the planet. The 1st ring was the outer most and was made from smaller patrol ships with crews of less than fifty men, the main ring was where the bulk of the ships where located. Here was where the colonial battlestars and other larger ships where located. The plan was for these ships to head to retake Kobol when the time was right but not all of them would go. Mixed in among the ships where the older battlestars from the Cylon war era, while most had been reactive some were to remain defense platforms. The lowest level was the one nearest to the planet, here where the transport ships and modified battlestars designed so that instead of flight pods there were docking points for troop ships. Tauron was by far the most heavily guarded planet in the colonies with the only two exceptions being the Scorpio shipyards and the joint Caprica Gemmon defense fleet which was currently located in the same system but on the other side of the solar system.

Among these massive fleet the new Hercules class battlestars stood out not only due to their size but due to the massive attention given to them in the colonial press. Everyone knew that the Hercules and the Theseus where going to Tauron while the only other current Hercules class ship, the Bellerophon was staying to defend the Scorpio ship yard until more of the massive ships where finished.

Moving along the perfectly clean corridors was Captain Lee Adama, all around him people were enjoying themselves. The sound of laugher could be heard coming from multiple rooms as people took in the holiday, the whole battlestar was perfectly clean with none of the signs of wear that was common elsewhere in the fleet. Flat screen monitors lined the walls showing not only the status of the ship but currently the military parade happening down below them. Lee looked away and headed down a flight of steps until he reached the hanger.

Inside the hanger where multiple squadrons of Vipers and Raptors all ready to go into action, like everything else on the ship it was perfectly clean and brand new. He stopped as he reached the small bay where his new Viper was. He ran his hand down the metal, unlike most of the fleet he had one of the new vipers which had multiple gun racks and rocket boosters for additional speed. Even so he didn't look at the bird with the same reverence he had seen other pilots look at theirs, he saw that while it was an improvement the Tau'ri counterpart was it superior in almost every way. He was one of only a handful of people who had seen what the Tau'ri was really capable of and he was ordered not to speak of it with anyone below the rank of an admiral and never to the private citizen. He had kept that order unlike Baltar who had spilled his guts to the people on the news and now found himself in some unknown hole somewhere.

"Fraken Baltar." cursed Lee, he had no idea why he would speak out now. Baltar was smart, smarter than he was and he should of known that the general sense among the people was that the war was all but over. To say otherwise was asking for trouble to no gain.

"You say something sir?" inquired a deck hand

"No." answered Lee as the deck hand laughed.

"Just complaining about going out on patrol while everyone else celebrating." laughed the deck hand as Lee went around his bird double checking everything. He made sure his weapon pods where loaded and finally he got into his Viper, a light outside his bay turned on telling the other deckhands that he was ready. Within a few minutes he was loaded into one of the launch tubes and sent rocketing out of the battlestar and into the void of space to begin his patrol.

**Out on the edge of colonial space the battlestar Pegasus was surrounded by three smaller cruisers and two destroyers. **The small task group of six ships wasn't large enough to do any real damage and was basically nothing of note in military terms but inside one of the flight pods a long-range jump probe sat waiting to be accessed. The high radiation that was released from the multiple jumps meant that they had to wait 90 minutes after the probe returned to get near enough to the core to plug in and download the information. They had attempted to use remote control robots to plug in the cord but the strong radiation had messed with the video feed and so they had to wait.

"Our first probe back in 3 months." said an intelligence expert as the Commander of the rebuilt ship stood beside him and other military intelligence experts. Finally, an alarm went off informing them all that the radiation level was in the green, with that a remote-control robot moved forward and after a few tries they plugged in and began to download the data. The multiple still images where sent instantly to giant printers, everyone gathered around the printers waiting for that first image to come out.

"We can expect some military build up but we can use these images to plan our invasion of Kobol." Said the team leader as the first image printed off and instantly everyone stopped smiling and laughing. Before them was a long distance image of Kobol but instead of the dozen defense station there was now multiple times that amount. A massive amount of ships filled the space around the holy world.

"By the Lords of Kobol, look at this build up." Stated another expert with fear in his voice as he began counting the number of ships in orbit. He started with the massive battlestar sized ships and came up with 42 large battlestar sized warships and many more transports. The number of smaller ships where far above anything that should have been possible.

"How could they have that many ships there?" inquired a female member of colonial intelligence "Everything we know says the number of ships they have is small, even if they brought every ship they had it couldn't be this many."

"Ma'am look at the buildup on the ground." stated another person as he pushed over the most recent photo which showed new networks or roads which hadn't been there before, whole cities had grown out of nothing. "This build up is impossible in three months. Something is going on."

"Could it be faked somehow?" inquired the Commander "This is the 1st probe back in 3 months of trying."

"I don't know how, but there is no way something like this could be built up in only 3 months." Stated the experts as he looked over the print out. "They have a lot more ground forces then what can fit in the ships they have here. They must be building up their forces for their own invasion but they aren't ready yet."

"Good, we should alert command but first I want these photos confirmed when can you send another probe?" inquired the Command as he looked at the massive buildup of Tau'ri forces. "We need to confirm if this is true."

"We have to wait until the probe is ready to launch again, should be about 90 minutes." Explained a nearby engineers

"90 minutes will not make that much of difference." Said the commander "Better to confirm this information before we cause high command to have a panic attack."

**General Leong was in the command center located off the bridge of the Missouri, she watched the progress of the fleet of hyperspace, it wasn't perfect but she could see the location of each ship in her fleet.** The fleet was 45 minutes out from the point where they would exit hyperspace, once there they would only be a few minutes from combat.

"Admiral are your ships ready?" inquired General Leong to a nearby British Admiral who was in charge of the fleet itself. In truth, General Leong was happy to have him in charge of the ships, she was a ground warrior not a ship fighter. She imagined it was like moving tanks across the battlefield but it was still better to have an expert to handle it.

"General Leong all our task groups and their commanders know what they have to do and everything is ready." said the Admiral "I have studied multiple battles and the combat doctrine that the Colonial Navy used in battle and it is rather dated, they use their battlestars and other ships like old ships of the line. The form a basic straight line and then they try to blast their enemy away, it is a very static form of combat."

"Yes, it is." Confirmed General Leong as a quote from the colonial version of the art of war, Ares the way of the spear and shield came to her. "Order is the key to any battle, maintain discipline and order because lack of discipline and disarray leads only to defeat."

"Ma'am?" inquired the Admiral

"A quote from the colonial version of the art of war, it sums up their entire battle doctrine. They believe in straight forward combat no major tricks and they move forward slow wave attacks under heavy artillery." stated General Leong "They will have no idea how to deal with mobile warfare and a battlefield that has no real bounders, where attacks could happen everywhere. I almost feel sorry for them they will have no idea how to deal with what is coming at them."

**President of the 12 Colonies of Kobol, Richard Adar rested against the headboard in the Presidential room of a 5-star hotel on Virgon.** Night had fallen outside and he was prepared for bed, a stack of papers rested beside the bed which contained the midday intelligence briefing. In that briefing he had the number of soldiers and marines stationed on Tauron preparing to retake Kobol, all 10 million of them. It also had the time table for invasion which said the fleet should be ready to head out in 6 to 9 months by then the number of soldiers will break 17 million and by then there will be no force that could stop them. He looked up from the book he was reading toward the TV which showed the last moments of the military parade on Tauron along with Secretary Cain, other leaders, celebrates and holy men watching from a raised platform with the statue of Ares behind them. He debated with himself for a moment if he should stay up and watch the speeches and the raising of the flag over the hill of hero but instead decided to get some sleep. He picked up the remote and turned the TV off before lying down and closing his eyes.

**Over President Adar's home world of Caprica, the battlestar Galactica floated over the night side of the capital world.** Like his President Admiral Adama was preparing for bed himself, he was finishing up his normal evening walk around the ship checking in with key personal and simply talking with some of the crewman and women he ran into. He found that a commander who stayed behind close doors all the time didn't know what was really happening on their ship. As he neared his door the two colonial marines in their black uniforms which stood before his door snapped to attention.

"Evening sir." Said one of the marines

"Evening Joe, how is the wife?" inquired Adama to the marine

"Well Sir, We found out we are expecting…again." Said the marine and father of four.

"Well I will offer my best anyhow." stated Adama as the other marine opened the door for him.

"Sir, will you need anything?" inquired the second marine

"No but I have an early meeting tomorrow on the surface so make sure a Raptor is ready to take me down." ordered Adama

"I will make sure of it sir." said the marine as Adama stepped into his room "Good night sir, sleep well."

"I will." answered Adama as the door closed behind him.

**Another old warrior Captain Ramuis stood on the bridge of the Akula watching a convoy of nearly 60 colonial ships move slowly between the stars**. Most of the convoy was civilian owned ships but access to the colonial database had confirmed that all of them where under contract from the military and loaded with war material of some kind. The group of sixty ships only had 12 defending war ships and of those only a single one was a battlestar an older and small one on top of it. Surrounding the group was 15 Akula class ships all ready to attack and destroy the convoy of ships.

"Alright we will open up with beaming nukes onboard the warships and then we will destroy the convoy." Stated Ramuis "Do we know how many ships have FTL or are armed?"

"Most are armed but with small anti-fighters guns and missile pods only a third of the fleet has FTL." Answered the second officer "They will be the first ships we bring down once we drop the warships."

"Good, if any ships surrender do not destroy them until we beam the crews onboard." Ordered Captain Ramuis, since most the ships where cargo ships with only a handful of crew members they could be held onboard the ships of the Tau'ri until they were transferred to POW camps.

"Yes, sir." Confirmed the second officer as she looked at the clock on the wall, it was a countdown until they would unleash unspeakable destruction on the Colonies.

**Secretary Cain clapped as the parade neared its end, she like so many others had watched for hours as a grand army marched through the streets.** There was of course some more light hearted moments with floats and entertainment but it was almost entirely a military parade. The last part of the parade was made up of a column of men and women in historical armor with swords, spears and bronze armor marching down the street. They marched until they reached the statue of Ares which was located behind the stand where she and others sat. They stopped as one before the statues and stood at attention as the head priestess from the nearby temple of Ares stood up and moved toward a podium and began her speak.

Sectary Cain barely listened to the Priestess talking about how the Lord of Kobol Ares, the Lord of war was with this grand army and it was a holy sign that the celebration of the end of the Cylon war fell on his holy day when they were at war. She didn't really listen as he moved on to a speech about everyone even the worse sinners would be forgiven and enter the paradise if they fought in this holy battle.

Finally, it was sectary Cain's turn to speech as she stood up and adjusted her pants suit, she still wished she could wear her old Admiral Uniform but she was bound to wear civilian clothing for the moment. Even so she wore a pin on her front with a miniature battlestar and the seal of the Colonial Navy.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, warriors and civilians it has been 40 years since the end of the Cylon War. During that herculean struggle, we fought in the bloodiest battles in our history where thousands would die. We honor those who died in the defense of not only Tauron but of every colony, to honor them every year we raise the flag of the legendary 75th infantry over the hill where they fought and died to save this city and the planet, it is a great honor for me to order that this year. When I was a little girl I saw the bravery of men and women of Tauron and I am proud to call it my home world." stated Cain as the crowd broke out in thunderous applause. "When the battle for this city hung in the balance, when brave men and women who were fighting for their very homes and lives took great hope in seeing the flag of the 75th infantry unit flying over the hills. Seeing that flag with all the bullet holes and battle scars on it still flying renewed our hope and so each year we raise it over this city so that we can all remember and take hope from it."

**Above their heads in the massive colonial fleet was at rest, nothing was going on.** All the ships where at rest and even the number of patrolling vipers and raptors where down due to people out celebrating. Suddenly everything changed as alarms began going off onboard every ship in the fleet as their Dradis systems began to pick up something just outside the 3rd defense ring around the planet.

"This is Apollo, I am making a turn around the planet will have visual in…" reported Lee Adama as he made the turn to see blue vortex in the distance. "Hercules Confirm, we have a Tau'ri FTL opening."

"They finally show themselves again the cowards." Said Lee's wingman as multiple small blue vortex opened. "Looks like they sent some raiding bombers…."

Lee's wingman stopped as the multiple larger vortex opened across the entire horizon until it was as if there was one massive vortex which stretched across the horizon.

"By the Lords of Kobol…that is not a bombing force." Said Lee before slamming his wireless broadcaster into all channel. "Massive Tau'ri force spotted in grid 19 D…I say again massive Tau'ri force in grid 19 D."

**Onboard the multiple battlestars and warships the commanders where abuzz the Tau'ri force had arrived and was heading right toward the largest force in the colonies. **

"They are fools, per intelligence the entire Tau'ri force is likely just over a hundred ships and we have thousands here." said the Admiral onboard the Hercules as he waited for the first confirmation of the Tau'ri strength. Then the Dradis screen showed him a tally of the number of ships heading his way and his eyes widened as multiple staff officers simply stopped and looked at it dumbfounded. One of them actually dropped his coffee cup which broke upon impact with the deck. "Double check there is no franken way that they could have that many ships!"

"Sir they are launching fighters!" yelled officer

"Alert high command, we have over 500 Tau'ri ships heading toward…" yelled the second officer only to have more alarms go off.

"Sir a second force is appearing behind the first!" yelled another Dradis operator "This one is even bigger."

"By the Gods, that isn't just a strike force." Stated an officer "It's a fraken invasion force. They are going to invade Tauron."

"We still have more ships then they do." Countered the commander "Get all vipers and raptors airborne, move ships into a defense ring and alert command. We have a battle on our hands."

**On board the Missouri General Leong watched as the crew of the battleship checked to make sure all the ships are reporting.** The roll call of ships rang through her head as she watched as the massive fighter force shot out ahead of the capital ships which had carried them into battle. The fighters formed up into attack wings as they headed toward their target, behind them mixed in with the warships where more flights of Eagle, Taita fighter bombers and condor bombers.

Before them the Colonial fleet was slowly moving into position to face the oncoming threat but their ships had been at rest and the ships where very slow by Tau'ri standards. Even so there was a massive amount of them between them and the planet.

"We are in range." Reported the general in charge of the Missouri

"Then fire at will." ordered General Leong as the bow of the Missouri and the other battleships which were forming the tip of the spear charged the ancient beam cannons which was their most powerful weapons. The Daedalus class and Galahad class ships would have to get closer to use their weapons and the carriers where staying either in the center of the fleet or back with the actual invasion fleet. At their max range they 32 battleships in the front of the fleet opened fire with their weapons. The 32 beams of green light shot forward and cut straight through 32 colonial battlestars which was busy launching every viper they had as they moved into position.

Their explosion light up the night sky below as the smaller ships moved forward behind a massive wall of Eagle fighters before the colonials where scramming their own fighter defense but with so many pilots and other personal on leave for the holiday their numbers where not nearly as high as they should. At max range the Eagle fighters along with some Condor bombers who were carrying anti-air missiles began to ripple fire their weapons. The colonial missiles didn't have the range of the Tau'ri and so before they could even get in range to open up vipers and raptors where exploding in space.

**Moments before the arrival of the fleet the Tau'ri forces on the ground held their breaths as they prepared to announce their location to the people of Tau'ri.** Shells where slammed into breaches and missile launchers where raised into position. Every gun, every rocket had an assigned first and second target from one of the nearby bases to the trench lines which were currently being held by a token guard force.

Sitting at the edge of the cloaking field Colonel Jager stood up in the copula of his tank and thanked God for his luck. A column of colonial military vehicles where sitting in the road in front of them, they had stopped on the side of the road allowing their crews to watch the soon to be scheduled fireworks that was supposed to come when the flag was raised. They had no idea that there was not going to be any fireworks, well fireworks they would enjoy. To make matters even better they had pulled off the road so that their sides where to him and his line of tanks hiding behind the cloaking field. The side of a tank even one as heavily armored as the Colonial Pallas tank was thinner than the front and here was a column of colonial tanks and other vehicles straight from the parade ground. It was a target that tankers dream about.

"Armor piercing." ordered Jager to his crew as he heard the slamming sound of the shell into the chamber. He then used hand signs to inform the other tank commanders of their assigned targets. He didn't want to use radios incase the colonials intercepted it and alerted them to their location. Even so it didn't matter as he passed the command to every tank in his front row. His Leopard turret turned slightly as its main gun lined up on the stationary Pallas tank which sat only 300 meters away from him, sitting in the open with its crew out of their tank to watch the planned fireworks that came with the raising of the flag.

**Elsewhere on the battlefield, gun barrels on the long-range artillery where raising up so that their barrels poked out over the cloak.** That wouldn't matter much longer and with the darkness of the night and all eyes on the hill no one noticed. Shells where being slammed into breaches and missile launchers where raising up locking onto their final targets. The missiles having a longer range then the guns where targeted at the distance colonial artillery platforms which dotted the landscape, while the field guns where targeted at closer targets and the mortar teams had even closer targets to fire upon.

The missile batteries where aimed and loaded with each Tiger mobile launcher carrying 12 long range missiles that could be fired only a half second apart and carry almost 10,000 grenade sized explosives in each missile that would break up above the target area before descending and detecting. In one section of the battlefield 25 tigers where aimed at a single colonial target, with other sections aimed at other points. A handful of Tigers where not going to fire and where instead going to be held back as counter battery fire incase colonial artillery opened fire from some unknown location while the other tigers where reloading.

The field guns and mortar teams where going to hit their targets in what was generally called a TOT or Time on Target barraged. That basically meant that each shell would arrive on the assigned target within a few seconds of each other giving no one time to hide. Even the types of shells where preselected with most being proximity so that they would go off above the ground making a cone of death below them, even so they were going to fire old fashioned impact shells and even some ground penetrators to make the ground unstable for any gun that might move in later. Engines where going and everyone held their breath as they waited for the moment to come.

**Inside the City the Sectary Cain's speech was all but over as she and the rest of the crowd waited for the moment.**

"And the moment we have all been waiting for the raising of the flag of victory." Said Cain as all the eyes on the grand avenue turned around to consider the distance, on the hills surrounding the capital. It was those hills which had formed a natural barricade which had stopped the Cylons just as like it had stopped all the other attacks who tried to take the city in the past when man fought man before Tauron was unified and long before the colonies of Kobol where unified. The flag of the 75th infinity battalion began to rise on the tallest flag pole in the colonies. She held her breath as suddenly the blood red flag with the white circle and hooked cross in black snapped open as it reached the built in fans that kept it moving in the still night. For a moment, she felt at peace looking at the banner which stood for bravery and Tauron pride, she couldn't understand why the Tau'ri hated it. Cheers and clapping field the massive crowd only to have it suddenly stop when the flag went flying off the poll blowing in the wind.

"Looks like the ropes needed to be replaced." laughed the comedian who was going to come on after her to help get the party started. His voice was so loud that the microphone caught it and the people began to laugh, it was a slight embarrassment to have the rope snap and the flag fall but it had happened before, not as publicly but it had.

"Looks like they got the backup out." said the Comedian as he moved to take the podium from Cain, suddenly everyone stopped as the flag unfolded on the hill of heroes. The hill where the men and women of the 75th division had fought a desperate battle to keep the Cylons out of the city, one of the holy grave yards of fallen heroes now didn't have the flag of that division flying overhead. A royal blue flag had replaced the blood red, a pure silver circle replaced the bright white and a silver upside letter V replaced the black hooked cross.

"Tau'ri." said Cain as the flag snapped in the wind, displaying its colors to the million people watching in the city and the countless billions watching live across the colonies. Suddenly the sky above them became bright white and the night was turned into day. Cain looked up through the clouds to see that the light was coming from above the clouds. She hadn't seen that before but others had.

"Those are ships blowing up above us in space." stated a Cylon war veteran who was on the stage with her, the light had begun to fade but was still bright enough to see with ease. "I saw that on here when the Cylons destroyed ships in orbit."

"Everyone remain calm, we are totally safe this colony has the best defenses of any others we can stop a simple Tau'ri terrorist strike." Said the Mayor as he took the podium as the sound of distance thunder filled the air. Cain and so many others turned to see that the hill of heroes was aglow with muzzle flashes, a lot of muzzle flashes and then came the un mistakable sound of missile fire. Not only had the Tau'ri taken the hill with a small force they had somehow placed field guns there without them knowing.

"That isn't a terrorist strike." Said Cain as she looked at all the men and women in uniforms standing watching the parade. "We are under attack, the Tau'ri are back everyone get to your post and defend the city."

"Ma'am what are our orders?" inquired a voice from the crowed as more heavy artillery came from the Tau'ri. So far there was no returning fire coming in from Colonial artillery which made her fear that somehow, they had somehow knocked out all their artillery. Her mind was in overdrive trying to figure out how it was possible, how could the Tau'ri have landed a force without them knowing and if they couldn't push the Tau'ri off that hill then the city would fall. The Cylons had thrown everything short of a nuclear weapon to take that hill and they failed and the Tau'ri already had it.

"The orders are easy, it's kill or be killed." stated Cain as more explosions filled the air and the ground shook.

**Well Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, I hope you enjoyed the opening moments of the invasion and the massive artillery fire done by the Tau'ri. Now I will be taking the rest of the year off so you will all have to wait until early 2017 for the next chapter, yes, I know I am evil leaving you right when the guns start firing and the missiles start flying but this was the perfect place to stop. Until then I thank you all and please keep reading. Wilkins75.**


	66. Chapter 66

**Well I have returned, happy new years and I would like to thank everyone who waited for my return with grace and like I said I would return early in 2017. I would like to say something before you read the chapter, I told you a while go how I was getting annoyed by people constantly PM/reviewing me asking for the next chapter and I actually, got a review at 12:10 am on 1/1/2017 saying from a guest "Well it's early 2017". I told you all that the chapter would come out and all that review did was tick me off and I do this for fun ticking me off doesn't make it fun. So please remember I update generally every 7 to 10 days and unlike most I tell you if it is going to be longer than normal please remember I do have a life like anyone else in their mid twenties, I have a life outside of fanfiction, friends, family and I have a 9 to 5 full time job so please keep calm between chapters. Now enjoy the chapter, Wilkins75.**

**Chapter 66 The Opening moments**

The missiles and shells flew on an unstoppable path, they had a date with destiny and nothing the colonials could do could stop them on their predestined path. Most of the people of Hypatia and the colonies in general where too stunned to even process what was happening. They had all been ready to celebrate one of the holies days in the Colonies along with the 40th anniversary of the end of the Cylon war. The party was going to kick off with the traditional raising of the flag over the hills of heroes only it wasn't the flag of barely that flew over that hill now, it was the Tau'ri flag. Moments after the flag was raised flashes of light and a deafening roar filled the air as death took flight.

The first target of the Tau'ri fire was across the Sionip river where the Hypatia military base along with the adjuring space port sat. The missiles hit first, each one of the missiles broke apart above the ground breaking up into thousands of small grenade size charges which began to drop down on the crowed base. The Tau'ri had timed their attack perfectly, the base was full of soldiers all out in the open having just returned from a the parade. The stunned soldiers and marines where just standing around stunned when the bomblets began to explode among their numbers. The results where devastating as millions of small explosives went off in a space of only a handful of football fields. Before the deafening roar of the explosions could even fade the artillery shells fired by the guns on the hill of hero began to fall. The heavier shells didn't have as wide of effect as the bomblets but they packed a heavier punch which was needed to take care of the heavy armored vehicles that the colonials used. Tanks and other vehicles where turned into burning wrecks, buildings where turned into piles of rubble and human bodies into mince meet. In the opening moments, the largest defense group on that side of the hills within 50 miles had been whipped off the face of the planet before they could fire a shot.

**Above their heads the position was no better, a fleet of 1,500 Tau'ri ships had exited hyperspace and had entered a pitch battle against the massive colonial defense fleet. **While they outnumbered the Tau'ri, the Tau'ri ships where all around faster, better protected with shields that could stand up to everything but the strongest colonial assault and most importantly better armored.

"Atlanta…come in Atlanta!" yelled a pilot over the wireless as Lee and the other Vipers and Raptors pilots who had been patrolling over the dark side of Tauron fought a desperate battle just to stay alive. Colonial battlestars, cruisers and destroyers where being picked off like flies.

"Atlanta is gone!" yelled another voice as a nearby cruiser went up in a giant fireball from another one of the Tau'ri beam weapons. The ship which had destroyed it was one of the smaller Tau'ri ships like the one they had first meet and it had just destroyed a ship nearly double its size in a single moment.

"Apollo to Hercules!" yelled Lee as he banked his viper to avoid gun fire from a Tau'ri Eagle fighter. The Hercules was on the other side of Tauron so it was possible still there. "Hercules come in."

"This is Hercules CAG Apollo, we have reinforcements on route every viper and raptor we have is heading straight toward the 3rd line." stated the voice of the head of the all vipers and Raptors on the flagship of the Tauron fleet.

"Hercules CAG, the 3rd line has already fallen." explained Lee as he looked around him, the three defense lines which had surrounded Tauron was falling apart. The outer most line, the 3rd line was already gone. The small patrol ships which moved in that area had been destroyed or fallen back to the main defense line, which was the middle line. Even the middle line was falling apart, as the Tau'ri ships pressed their attack.

Adama turned away as a nearby Tau'ri ship was hit by a nuclear strike. The shock wave that it created sent smaller ships flying and turned vipers, raptors and eagles to flaming torches but it's main target a small Tau'ri ship remained the same and instead returned fire and destroyed the battlestar that had fired the nuke.

Everything was breaking down, there was no defense line, there was no line or origination. There was no line of battlestars and other ships firing barrages of gun fire holding the Colonial line was in total disarray, even the viper and raptor squadrons couldn't form up into an organized defensive line. The Tau'ri eagles where faster, better armed and had technology which made them extremely hard to even find on Dradis screens and their black paint made them hard to see in space. In contracts his viper was a white with red stripes, others had different color stripes but all where a white/silver in color.

"Hercules the 2nd line has all but fallen, we are pulling back to the 1st line." Order Lee

"Apollo, hold on for orders." Said the Hercules CAG, suddenly a new voice came over the wireless.

"This is Hercules Actual." Said a male voice, that Adama knew belonged to the admiral in command of the Hercules and since it was the flag ship he was in charge of all the ships over Tauron. "All colonial forces over Hypatia fall back to the 3rd defense line."

Adama and the others didn't have to be told again, they turned and headed toward the 1st defense line which was actually the last line and was the only thing separating the Tau'ri from Tauron.

**Onboard the Missouri the British Admiral who was in command of the fleet saw the movement of the colonial forces and chuckled to himself. **Beside him even General Leong was shaking her head, she being in the army, even the air force General was shaking his head.

"Do they really think that will work?" inquired the air force General as he noted that the Colonial center was falling back while the wings stayed firm, with reinforcements coming from the other side of the planet they could trap the Tau'ri forces between the two wings as they moved in to fire at them from the sides. "That is planning 101, so up front you wouldn't use it because only a real idiot would fall for it."

"We actually could, with our technology we could bust out of their trap but either way we need to press our attack." Said General Leong "We need to punch through their line so that we can land our forces."

"And so we shall." Confirmed the Admiral as he tapped a few commands and looked at real time location of the colonial ships which were being tracked by cloaked owls. It was just as he had expected, the two-massive new Hercules class ships where leading charges of colonial ships around either side of the planet. He selected the different task groups he wanted as the orders went out. On the screen the high officers watched as the Chinese fleet with the Australian and Canada force in support broke formation and headed toward the oncoming Colonial wing headed by the Hercules. Another fleet, the Indiana fleet along with the Brazilian fleet broke formation and headed toward the other oncoming force. A third much smaller force made from only Daedalus class and Galahad class ships headed away from the battle and entered hyperspace.

If the ships had been equal in power, separating the fleet would mean that the smaller fleet could be destroyed one by one by the much larger force. That wasn't the case here, all anyone on the bridge had to do was look at the grim tally which was being kept by the Tau'ri command. The tally was currently sitting at 682 colonial warships plus additional vipers and raptors destroyed to 37 Eagle fighters and 17 Taita fighter bombers. Some of those colonial warships contained thousands of crew members while the Eagles and Taitas only had one pilot each and they could be beamed out before their birds died.

"**The Tau'ri are splitting their forces!" yelled the Dradis officer on the Hercules. **"We now have five forces, the main force is still pushing forward, with the second largest group staying back. They have split off two fleets and are heading toward our forces heading around the planet. Another smaller force has abounded the battle."

The news that a force had abounded the battle caused smiles of hope to come across the faces of the command crew.

"Fools, we can move in and destroyed the smaller force…." started the Colonial Admiral

"New Contacts!" yelled the Dradis operator as everyone held their breaths, was this reinforcements or more enemies. "Tau'ri ships coming out of FTL in the position we just left. Sir…those are the ships that left the battle, they did a run around."

"How many ships do we have there?" inquired a lower officer

"They outnumber us there and once they get in range they can shell the planet below." reported the Dradis operator as calls for help came over the wireless as the Tau'ri ships which had moved to the opposite side of Tauron began to destroy the defending ships.

"**Fire!" yelled Colonial Jager as he like any good commander was half way out of the copula of his tank. **Even with the sound protection built into his full visor helmet and the eye protection that was added he was deafened for a moment by the sound as the main gun of his Leopard III tank spoke. The armor piecing round left the barrel with an explosion of light and flame. Even through the flame he thought he saw the armor piercing sabot round leave the gun with the sabots which held the dart like round tight to the barrel fall away even as the round moved forward. The round slammed into the armored side of the Pallas he was aiming at and pierced straight through the armor and into the heart of the colonial tank. While the armor piercing sabot round had, no explosive charge the force of sending an arrow like round of metal over 3,000 miles an hour into the heart of any vehicle meant anyone inside the tank was dead. This Pallas tank died in a firing explosion as the sabot round hit something inside, likely the ammo causing the tank's heavy turret to go flying off into the air.

"Kill!" yelled the Gunner

"Reload!" yelled Jager as he looked down the line the other tanks under his command had all opened on the column and had destroyed all the colonial vehicles in a single moment. Some of the lighter armored vehicles had been destroyed with Heat high explosives rounds while the tanks had met their ends by sabot rounds. "Driver forward!"

"Yes, sir." answered Private Spiro as the Leopard tank moved forward massing through the cloak and appearing before the stunned survivors of the opening volley of fire. Other tanks and APCs nearby opened up with their machine guns mowing down anyone who got in their way before cutting the highway. As they passed over the large six lane highway he turned toward the capital city, already he could see flames licking the sky and smoke in the air. The fire of artillery wasn't letting up, he knew that his mission was in the opposite direction away from the city. The American 1st armored division had that task along with help from motorized division from China and an Australian infinitary divisions where going to move into the city from the land side. He turned his tank so that he ran astride the highway, his mission was 20 miles away, at the nearest colonial base this side of the hills. The Leopard took off kicking up dirt as it moved down the side of the road faster than any colonial tank in history. Jager noticed the stunned expressions on some of the civilians as if they couldn't imagine that a tank could move that fast.

As he passed down the road the colonial civilians who had been on the road in their own cars where acting like he expected civilians to act, they acted stupidly. Somewhere gunning it down the road as fast as their vehicles could take them, others where leaving their cars and running on foot into the low fields, others were taking their cars into those fields and getting stuck. Still others where simply too stunned and watched dumbstruck as the tanks, APC and other vehicles rolled past them. The vehicles abounded in the road where roadblocks to those who tried to make a getaway in their vehicles. Some of the accidents where nothing more than fender benders while more where deadly.

"My God look at that!" yelled the Gunner as he looked through his scopes as a colonial version of an SUV hit an abounded semi-truck and flipped up into air before coming down on top of the truck. Jager saw it too but he didn't say anything, he was too focused on his job at hand. His focus was confirmed when he heard small arms fire in the distance.

**Up ahead was the colonial military base of Fort Penelope colonial viper and raptor pilots ran toward their birds. **Unlike the other bases in the area, Fort Penelope wasn't taking any fire. No shells where landing on the runway and no missiles where exploding overhead even though they were only 20 miles away from the hills of heroes. The pilots could see the flashes of fire from the hills as they rushed toward their birds which stood in perfect lines on the runways. Nearby soldiers were also preparing for battle getting into their combat packs and preparing to march out. Just as the pilots were about to get into their cockpits, a nearby tree line erupted in small arms fire.

"Focus on the pilots!" ordered Colonel Drugov as the Russian Spetsnaz and only living formal Colonial POW ordered his machine gun crew to focus on the line of pilots as they ran toward their birds. The colonials had lined their birds in straight rows and best of all for them the colonial drilled their pilots to run in front of their birds facing the runway so that they wouldn't get hit by engine blast as a bird started. That may have protected them from that kind of danger but not a group of special forces who had set up multiple machines guns on their position.

"Team five move to take the command center and team 7 head into the vehicle park we need to take this base intact if we want to bring in reinforcements on schedule." ordered Drugov as he aimed his rifle at five colonial soldiers who was charging the line of machine guns their bayonets out. Drugov dropped three of the five with a single shot from his rifle, the other two were killed by other members of his assault teams. He shook his head as he looked at the colonial response, they hadn't expected a fight and their military was focused on order and well planned attacks. They hadn't expected a fight and had no idea what to do and so they didn't act like defending soldiers should. "Idiots, brave but stupid idiots."

**The city of Hypatia was in total panic as the hill which had once been their unconquered shield was now being used as a launching point for a massive attack on the city. **Fires were burning across the river as the Hypatia military compound burned as it took multiple blows from Tau'ri fire. A mass of civilians fearing the coming storm moved toward the main bridge which crossed the river. They were met by multiple colonial military vehicles as the military forces which had been on paraded turned around and began to move down the same road that they had paraded down only this time they moved toward battle.

With all the eyes of military focused on the hills of heroes and the eyes of civilians looking for a way out, no one noticed the strange movement of water over the bay which lead out into one of the small oceans on Tauron. They came in low and fast, unseen by colonial sensors do to their cloaking technology but they dropped the field so that they could fire their missiles. Only a few people in the gathering of people gathered on the river side park noticed the much smaller flashes of light over the bay. Then the war came to them as missiles strike the colonial field guns which had been stationed in the park. These guns while old, dating back to the Cylon war and had been used to fire on Cylon positions outside the city were more museum pieces but they were still operational and manned by colonial army soldiers with a small amount of shells.

The civilians screamed and ran for their lives away from the fire and flames, clearing the grassy area as the Owls came in to unload their cargo. The back ramps of the owls opened as the marines jumped the six inches to the ground. They rushed off the Owls with weapons raised and was instantly greeted by small arms fire from colonial police officers. It wasn't a fair fight, pistols and a handful of rifles against assault rifles, battle armor and the more advanced weapons of the Tau'ri. The sound of gunfire caused the civilians to run as the Owls took off. They had to fly low to avoid friendly fire from Tau'ri guns firing on the military base across the river.

"Move it marines!" yelled a sergeant as the US marines moved up a walkway to get to the bridge itself. "We need to take this bridge!"

They moved onto the roadway and began firing at the Colonial soldiers which had been marching toward battle having turned around on the bridge itself. The colonial soldiers where in a very bad state, they were dressed for a parade not battle. They only had a few magazines for their rifles because none of them had thought of loading up for battle and their dress uniforms where not designed for combat. The officers actual had short swords hanging from their hips. They did have one major advantage, they had tanks and other armored vehicles on the bridge.

"Take down that tank!" yelled the officer as a young private shouldered a rocket launcher and fired into side of Colonial tank. The warhead wasn't strong enough to punch through the front armor of the tank but the side was possible. The rocket slammed into the tank but didn't go through the thick armor of the Pallas, it did knock the road wheels off the tank making it into a giant roadblock.

The Marines moved forward and swarmed the tank, with their power armor one of them was able to rip the hatch off the driver compartment and spray the inside with bullets before dropping a grenade into the compartment. The smaller charge inside the tank did what the larger charge couldn't on the outside, the Pallas tank soon became engulfed in flames.

"Lets get moving, Sheppard!" yelled the man beside the young private, as they moved forward on the firefight on the bridge. "I bet you wish you had signed up for the air force like your father."

"Stepfather." corrected the 18 year old Private Torren Shepard the son of Teyla Emmagan with the late Kanaan and the adopted son of General John Shepard. Even though he was a native of the Pegasus galaxy and a member of the Athosian race he wore the flag of the United States on his arm beside the Tau'ri. He popped his head over a guard rail and fired a burst from his rifle before ducking back down. "And would you want to take orders from your Dad for your entire carrier?"

"Well that makes some sense." admitted his squad mate as they moved down the line as the marines pushed to take the bridge.

**Only a few miles away in the center of the city they had no idea that the bridge was being taken and everyone was focused on the fire coming from the hills of heroes.**

"Move!" yelled a solider in a dress uniform to the two girls as Acacia and Medea where guided onto a civilian bus which was now crowed with people. Some in military uniform some out of it.

"I was on vacation." companied one of the man out of uniform as he took a pull on a flask as the bus began moving.

"Where are we going?" asked Acacia as more booms filled the air.

"Likely to Spear Park." Said a junior officer as the two women nodded their heads, spear park was where the defenders of the city had planned to fall back if the hill of heroes had fallen to the Cylons. It sat about 2/3rds the way between the center of the city and the hill. It would take the Tau'ri infantry who took those hills over two hours to get there. "Once we get there we dig in and hold while reinforcements cross over and then we push the Tau'ri off the hill."

"What?" asked the bus driver into a small civilian bran wireless broadcaster in the front. "What do you mean Spear Park is under attack by Tau'ri ground forces."

Those words caused everyone on the bus to turn and looked at him.

"Understood, rerouting." Said the driver as the bus moved down the extra wide roads that was common on Tauron.

"What is going on?" inquired the Journey Officer

"The Tau'ri…" said the Driver shaking his head. "The Tau'ri have already reached spear park, the police and some units there on public drill are being overrun."

"How could the Tau'ri already be down there?" inquired the officer

"How could they take the hill of heroes?" countered the driver as the bus kept moving.

**A pounding knock at the door caused President Richard Adar eyes to open a second before the door itself flew open as one of his guards moved into the room.**

"Lisa? What is it?" asked Adar as he looked at the clock, he had just turned the TV off 15 minutes ago.

"Mr. President, we don't know fully yet but Tau'ri forces have launched an attack on Tauron." Said the guard as Adar turned the TV on, instantly the glow of light caused by the screen filled the room with light even as Adar's blood ran cold. The first image he saw was the image of the blue and silver flag of the Tau'ri flying over a group of hills, it took him a moment to realize that was the hills of heroes outside of Hypatia.

"So, they are carrying out a terrorist strike." said Adar as the full scope of the battle didn't hit him until he noticed all the flashes along the bottom of hills. When the image changed to show massive fires burning on the colonial military base across the river. The TV was muted and when he unmuted it he heard the scared voice of the reporter who reporting attacks all around Tauron. Finally the image changed to show a man in a civilian space suit, he was inside a Raptor with the logo of the news company engraved onto the metal behind him.

"Lisa, this is Mike onboard our news raptor. We were filming a story about the fleet and we are currently following a task group into battle against our wayward cousins." said Mike as his image was replaced with live video from on of the outside camera. It showed an entire colonial navy battle force with multiple battlestars, cruisers and destroyers with the heart of the fleet being one of three largest, best armed and armored ship in history, the Hercules. "Once this fleet gets into range they will form up into a battle line and using their large guns blast the Tau'ri into dust."

"The Hercules will crush the Tau'ri." said Adar as the image panned over to show a much smaller force, even from the great distance he could tell from the shape of the ships that they were Tau'ri. "We outnumber them and…."

His voice gave out as a point of green light shot out from one of the larger of the Tau'ri ships and moved forward. It hit the Hercules head on and came out the other side, for a moment nothing happened and then the Hercules the most powerful ship in the colonial navy bucked and bend as massive explosion of fire erupted from the ship. Then with a burst of force it broke apart taking the lives of everyone onboard.

"By the Lords of Kobol…" said the reporter as more battlestars began to be strike down by the similar beam weapons fired by the Tau'ri. Before the live TV viewing audience not only was the Hercules destroyed but a colonial fleet was being torn apart before they could even get into combat formation.

**Onboard the Missouri everything was going per plan, they were watching real time reports which showed that the massive colonial fleet was being brushed aside by the advance technology of the Tau'ri. **Battlestars, cruisers, destroyers nothing seemed to be able to stand against them, they had only one real surprise. Two destroyers had to be pulled out of battle, one had even been crippled and the crew beamed out. The first one was because of a problem with the shield generator meant it was too much of a risk to put them into battle and the second the one that had been knocked out was a case of friendly fire. The small ship had moved to avoid getting hit by a battlestar broadside only to get a glazing shot by an Asgard beam weapon.

"General we have destroyed the two Hercules class battlestars and the colonial navy is in full retreat." said the Admiral as General Leong nodded her head.

"How soon can we send in the paratroopers?" inquired General Leong "We need to start landing our forces."

"They are lining up now, we still have some fighters holding up on the edge of the planet's atmosphere." explained the Admiral "Give the Eagle's a few more moments and it will be cleared."

"Good, we need to reinforce the marines at once." said General Leong as she pointed toward the bridge on a map. "If the Colonials hold it or destroy it, it will slow down our advance."

"They will be in the first wave." confirmed the Admiral

**Down on the planet Sectary Cain had been bouncing around in her seat as her SUV rushed over bridge which connected the two parts of Hypatia. **She had moved across the bridge before the arrival of the Tau'ri forces. The rings of hills had formed a natural defense on one half of the city with the river making a natural defense on the other. The bridge was the only way to cross the river to the other side where the city had expended, it was there that the space port and the military base sat. Those two positions where being pounded by Tau'ri fire even so as they moved over the bridge they passed by groups of soldiers moving toward the battle. They were marching in battle columns, vehicles ranging from tanks to APC where also moving forward. Most where still ready for the parade with people in dress uniforms. She even saw swords hanging from the hips of some of the officers.

"We need to get more units moving." ordered Cain as the SUV moved off the bridge and down an exit ramp before going through a military checkpoint to enter the underground parking lot beside the base. The SUV didn't stop as it neared the elevator. It took her a few minutes to reach the underground command and control center. The state was in a place of near panic as the officers most of whom were on the lower level because the higher ones had taken the holiday off tried to get a handle on the situation.

"There is no way Tau'ri could have armor on the ground, we have control over space." Stated a wireless operator into a receiver.

"What do you mean that Aklina base is taking fire? That is on the other side of the planet." Stated another operator as Cain moved toward a General who was at the heart of the mess.

"General what is the situation?" inquired Cain

"Sectary the situation is very confused." stated the General as he guided her eyes to the map where green and red marks where showing the curtain situation. "We know that the Tau'ri have claimed the hill of Hero and is firing both large and small artillery pieces into our positions, we are attempting to get our guns firing but they got in the first blow. I have ordered more pieces and reinforcements from the surrounding area but they are 60 miles away, so two hours to reach us."

"Good." Said Cain

"We have lost contact with our forces on the other side of the hills, likely because of Tau'ri fire knocking out communications." stated the General as he pointed toward the map. "Once I get confirmation we will move in on the Tau'ri pocket and crush them. The thing is I don't understand why they are launching an attack now. It doesn't make any tactical sense, you can't maintain battlefield order at night, you can't keep your men in formation and moving at night would slow down everything."

"How far do you think they could advance at night?" inquired Cain

"I wouldn't expect them to advanced more than five miles from their launching point." Stated the General "The only logical move that I can see is that they are setting up landing zones for their ships in orbit to begin landing at first light."

"We can fire on them from orbit, what is the situation in orbit." ordered Cain as the General lowered his head.

"A Tau'ri fleet is currently doing battle with our forces, the battle is still in the air but with our numbers the navy should win." said the General as suddenly a wireless operator rushed up to them.

"General, we just got a flash message the Hercules and the Theseus have been…destroyed the fleet is crumbling." Stated the operator as the General and Cain looked at him.

"We have the most powerful warships in the history of the colonies over our heads and you are telling me that they have been destroyed?" inquired Cain

"If the reports are true, they were destroyed with single shots each and never even got in range." Said the wireless operator as he handed over the report which included a list of ships that had already been destroyed. Cain's eyes widened, since she had been an admiral she understood what the list of destroyed ships and their position reports meant. The colonial fleet was more than just crumbling it was all but gone over Tauron.

"We need to pull all our ships back, we are getting our fraken asses handed to us in space we need to pull back and gather our forces." Stated Cain as she handed the report to the General "We need to reestablish order in the battle and right now we have nothing but disorder."

For a moment the General looked at the report before finally agreeing with the formal Admiral.

"Send the order, all ships pull back to Caprica when we they reform they will crush the Tau'ri." stated the General "Until then we will have to beat the Tau'ri on the ground."

"Sectary Cain, we should get you off world." Advised the General

"No, I will stay until the battle is won." Said Cain "However we need to get the civilians out of the line of battle."

"Evacuations are already underway." Stated the General as another aid moved forward and handed a report to him. "Is this confirmed?"

"Yes it is." Confirmed the aid

"What is going on?" inquired Cain

"Ma'am Tau'ri forces have landed in Hypatia and are currently fighting for control of the bridge." Explained the General "That isn't good."

"Why would they drop forces behind our lines where we can destroy them." Stated Cain

"If they can take the bridge and hold until their forces on the hill reach them they would have a crossing over the river." explained the general who knew ground warfare to the formal Admiral who knew space battle. "If they take that then they can move forces across the river and there is no natural defenses in their way for over a thousand miles and they are sitting on our line of reinforcements. We can't move forces across the river if they hold it meaning what we have over there is all that is standing in the way of Tau'ri forces from reaching the river."

He turned away from the Cain and to the aid. "Send the word out, tell civilians to use the subway tunnels to get out of the city, we will use them to get in the infantry into the city. We need to maintain discipline and order of battle then we will crush them like a steamroller when morning comes."

**Lee Adama dove his Viper into the atmosphere as he tried to make something out of nothing, everything was falling apart and nothing was going right.** He had been ordered to fall back to the 1st line of defense after the two outer rings of defense had been blasted through by the Tau'ri. He had expected to see reinforcements coming over the horizon which was marked by the edges of the plant below him. For a moment, he had seen those reinforcements only to see them break apart under the Tau'ri firepower. His viper was the last of the squadrons which had taken off from the Hercules all the others had been destroyed by the Tau'ri. Squadrons where trying to reform with mixes from different ships but there was no organization and the Tau'ri pounced.

Tau'ri missiles slammed into vipers and their rail guns tore into the sides of any raptor which hadn't been smart enough to run. Lee had ordered all remaining pilots to dive into the atmosphere to hide among the clouds and to gain an edge in turning. With the pull of gravity on their larger birds the Tau'ri couldn't pull the tight turns as they could in space.

"It will give anyone shot down a chance to bail out and land in friendly held land." Said Lee to himself as he looked up to see shadows of Tau'ri ships in the distance. "That isn't friendly anymore."

"Apollo, you got one on your tail!" yelled a voice from another pilot as Lee turned his head to see the dark shape of an Eagle fighter behind him. The fighter must have been out of missiles or else he would have shot one of those instead it was lining up for a gun run. Lee slammed one of his engines to the firewall as he spun the nose of his viper i turn. In this turn he had to fight from blacking out as 9 times of the force of gravity worked on his body but he knew he would find himself behind the Eagle and in perfect gun range. The Eagle flew past but as Lee's nose came up and his guns were ready to open fire, the impossible happened. The Eagle spun around in what had to be something beyon turn, so that he now was to Lee's side with his own guns lined up on him.

Time seamed to stop as Lee turned his head toward the dark shape of the Eagle fighter, the pilot should have died in the turn but Lee could see him in the cockpit. He was more than alive he looked perfectly calm like his body was under normal weight and the look on his face was one of a predator who had just caught his prey. Before Lee could do anything the twin barrels of the Eagle fighter guns glowed as the rail guns fired into the side of his bird turning it into mincemeat.

**Bullets where flying through the air as the Colonial defenders inside Hypatia tried to figure out what was going on. **The wireless was full of people yelling about Tau'ri attacks happening all over the city. Tau'ri snipers on rooftops taking shots at soldiers as they tried to form a defense line. Gunfights breaking out as small bands of Tau'ri foot soldiers ambushed police and military forces behind the line. There was even reports of firefights breaking out in the subways, on top of all of that you add the panic of the civilians who were rushing to escape the battle. Fires were burning filling the air with smoke.

Moving through the smoke with his team was Colonel O'Neill, he moved through the extra wide streets of Hypatia keeping close to the buildings to maintain cover. He scanned the area, the roads where extra wide with even the backroads where 3 lane with a large central turn lane. With the main roads being 4 or even 6 lanes wide. That was a major benefit to them since the wide lanes with the highest buildings being only 6 to 7 stories high meant that armor could easier brought into the fight. The sound of gunfire filled the air as he gripped the handle of his weapon tighter, as they reached the corner he saw a group of colonial civilians robbing a nearby bank, with the police busy somewhere taking advantage to loot. Most of the civilians where running for their lives and Jack was more than happy to let them go.

He poked his gun around the corner as the small camera at the end of the rifle activated. In his heads up display he saw a group of police officers and colonial military soldiers trying to set up a defense line behind multiple abounded cars. They were expecting the fight coming from the front so they were focused forward, none of them where looking back. Jack turned to his team and waved them forward to multiple locations behind cover. They waited until everyone was in position before as one they opened on the distracted colonial line. Suddenly finding themselves under fire from behind them confused the defenders as they spun around and began to fire at their attacks. It wasn't a fair fight, the Tau'ri had the advantage of both surprise and firepower over the colonials and to make matters worse just then cougar APC turned the corner in front of the colonial's barricade and opened them with its heavy machine cannon turning the defenders into mincemeat. When the fire died down the special forces members came out and moved toward the APC. The hatch near the front opened as a woman stood up so that she was semi out of the APC.

"You all good?" asked the woman in a south Texan draw

"We are good, we did spot a group of Colonial regulars setting up another roadblock about two blocks that way." reported Jack as he pointed down the road. "Maybe 50 men and women both military, police and armed civilians with one of their Pallas tanks with two of their Humvee knock offs with what looked to be TOW missile launchers."

"Well that is a little too heavy for just me to handle by myself." said the APC commander "The main body is coming up and…."

She stopped speaking as the screech of an engine overhead caused them all to look up just in time to see a flight of Eagle fighters fly over. Moments later multiple large dark shapes with white strips on the wings followed behind it.

"Looks like they finally reached the atmosphere we will be getting air support and backup soon." Finished the APC commander as more aircraft began to fly overhead.

**The Pelican transport was rocking back and forth as the Paratroopers of the 101****st**** airborne division sat in their chairs preparing themselves for battle. **The interior of the massive transport was darkened with the only light coming from tubes built into the floor like the ones common in movie theories. The transport rocked as it drove into the atmosphere of Tauron.

"Hail Mary full of Grace." prayed a trooper beside Lefeld as he ran his hands across a rosy, before he could finish what he was saying the lights in the transport turned red.

"Stand up!" yelled the jump master as the troopers stood up into their jump lines. "Hook up!"

Even as they crossed the void of space they still used an old fashion line that would open their parashot as they fell away from the plane. As the Paratroopers hocked up the back ramp lowered as a rush of air came in. Outside the troopers could see the dark night of Tauron, there was a few tracers coming up from the ground but not a lot.

"See we caught the Colonials flatfoot." said a paratrooper beside Lefeld as one of the Pelicans got hit by the tracers and caught fire. They watched as the men and women in that transport began to jump out even as the Pelican began to be consumed with flames. For the longest time they stood there as the transport moved toward their target area, everyone in the division knew their job. The Colonials lived off order and lines of battle, so they were going to confused them. While other airborne units where taking land zones for transports they were going to land at a possible landing zone and cause a lot of noise to make the colonials think that a much larger force had landed there. Everyone held their breath as the lights turned green.

"Go…Go…Go!" yelled multiple voices as the Paratroopers leaped into the night as they headed down to Tauron and into battle.

**Well I hope you liked this chapter, until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75**


	67. Chapter 67

**Chapter 67 In the Night**

Ice cold wind rushed over his suit as he fell into the darken night sky, for a moment he was afraid nothing had happened and he would have to pull on his backup. Then with a pull that went through his entire body he felt his rip cord get pulled and his parashot open with a snap. As it opened he scanned the sky and the ground for any issues, the sky was full of paratroopers and their transports. The full visor on his helmet was equipped with an advanced night vision system which inlayed multiple night vision and heat vision to give him and everyone else a view of the world that any solider would have killed for at night. It was kind of like seeing the world with the color toned down, he could see just as far as he could during the day however the colors where slightly off. A bright red would simply be a red, a neon green looked green and so on, but even with the colors toned down they could see the massive shapes of the pelicans as they dropped more paratroopers and even whole vehicles onto the landscape of Tauron.

Tauron was also a paratroopers dream, large flat land with some rolling hills and only a handful of trees in small clusters. The ground was level and the people of Tauron buried their power and telephone lines so they didn't get in the wall of descending paratroopers.

Lefeld landed with a thud like so many other paratroopers as he moved quickly to cut away his shoot and get his weapon ready. He didn't worry about hiding his shoot instead he looked to where three of his men had come down almost on top of each other.

"Thunder." said Lefeld even though the IFF chip in his suit which would tell his men's life sign detector that he was friendly.

"Flash." said one of his men as Lefeld moved in to find that his men, one was actually a woman but he still considered them men for the moment. Gathering their equipment and getting a fix on their location.

"Sir." said the woman as watched for any signs of movement in the tall grass, even with their life sign detectors they were trained to keep an eye out.

"Sir, we landed slightly off target." Reported another one as he pointed to a small computer built into the inside part of his arm. "We were supposed to land 500 yards to the North West."

"We can handle that with ease." countered the other as flood lights on a nearby farm house turned on. All the troopers turned to see that maybe 200 yards away the farmer had caught two troopers in his back yard. The sound of gunfire filled the air as the lights where taken out, seconds later a shotgun blast rang out before another burst of gunfire. Then came the sounds of a woman screaming and cursing.

"Remember we aren't here as liberators, the local populous is armed and ready to kill us if we aren't careful." confirmed Lefeld as he and his men took off across he farmland toward the rallying point. From there they would carry out their primary objective, take a nearby colonial artery position and either destroy the guns or turn them on the colonials themselves.

**Cold all he felt was cold and the rush of air as Lee Adama opened he fell through the clouds of Tauron, he had pulled the eject handle on his viper a second before his viper had been torn apart by Tau'ri gun fire.** Now he was falling into darkness, training kicked in as he fell and he reached and bulled the parashot release handle on his chest pack, with a jolt the shot deployed and his decent began to be more gentle. As he scanned the darkness, he saw multiple dark shapes falling with him at first he thought it was some of his fellow viper pilots until he noticed that their shoots where different. Their parashot where in the shapes of circles not the airfoil like his was.

"Tau'ri, they can't be pilots we didn't shot that many down." said Lee as he guided his shoot away from the mass of Tau'ri. Maybe because they were focus on ground none of the Tau'ri seemed to notice him as he guided away from them. As he got closer to the ground he heard the sound of gunfire and saw the flashes of small arms fire. "By the Lords of Kobol they are soldiers they are landing soldiers behind the line."

Before Lee could try to process why they were landing forces behind the line he hit the ground and was instantly faced with much more important questions such as finding a colonial military unit and avoiding the Tau'ri forces. He cut his shoot away and pulled out his side arm and made sure it was loaded as he scanned the darkness around him. In the dark he could just make out some of the nearby terrain but the best source of light came from some nearby street lights. He was tempted to move toward them when the light source exploded in a burst of glass as they were shot out. Reacting off instincts Lee moved away from the road where in the sudden light of a nearby farm house he could see the outline of a Tau'ri solider. He was alive and on the ground but so where the Tau'ri.

**The news of the attack on Tauron was sent out across all colonial military wireless ranges and the civilian ranges where not far behind them.** The news reached a large convoy of ships heading toward the Caprican system and instantly everyone was on guard but their Dradis screens where clear and nothing seemed to be leaking out in space. They were wrong moving in around them, amongst them where the Akula stealth attack ships, they moved in unseen and un detected by the Colonial Dradis system.

"Sir we have confirmation of attack and we are ready to execute operation." Said the second officer onboard the flag ship of the attacking force, the namesake of the class the Akula.

"All ships ready?" inquired Captain Ramius

"Yes, sir." Confirmed the second officer as Ramius walked forward and picked up a radio broadcaster which linked him with all his ships.

"This is Captain Ramius we will execute attack in three…two…one…execute." ordered Ramius as all the captains on their own ships ordered their own weapons officers to execute the attack. Across the convoy flashes of light filled the CIC of the warships which where providing escort to the lightly armed ships. The crews onboard the ships just had enough time to realize their fate before the nuclear warhead went off in the hearts of their ships. The expositions of the entire escorting force along with multiple of the larger ships caused panic to spread like wildfire among the remaining ships.

"Attention colonial ships, this is Captain Ramius of the Tau'ri stealth ship Akula." said Ramius over an open channel so that everyone could hear him. "Surrender or…."

He never got a chance to finish as multiple of the smaller ships began to fire blindly into the void of space with their light cannon. With the cloak up, the ships under his command had no shields and a lucky hit could do some damage that meant they had only one option. The Akula stealth force began to decloak and raise their shields, this allowed them to be protected from the shells coming at them but it also showed their position.

The other captains weren't going to sit back as their ships took fire without shooting back, they moved in and fired their own Asgard beam weapons. Unlike the other ships in the fleet, they only had the one but their weapon was stealth and they had destroyed any real threat to them. It was over in moments as the Akula class ships swept over the convoy turning them into nothing but floating wretches in space.

**The state of the Colonial government was nothing short of total panic, they were trying to figure out what was happening.** The panic reached all levels of the government all the way down to the local level. The phones were ringing none stop in multiple Colonial small towns as the civilians dialed their version of 911, 555 and reported what they saw happening around them. Being civilians and scared they reported the wrong thing almost every time. One Tau'ri paratrooper moving across a darkened field, became three or four moving across the same field, two paratroopers seen moving across a backyard became a squad, a Puma recon vehicle which had been para dropped in along with the soldiers spotted on a back road was reported only to have the same Puma spotted 10 minutes later and miles away was reported up the command as being two different vehicles because it was moving too fast. If someone saw a shadow of something in the distance it became a Tau'ri solider in the dark, even if it was something as simple as a couple

"Frak, we have another one, 4 of them on East Lance Street and we have a report of gunfire on." Reported the 555 operator to her supervisor who was marking everything down and sending them up to the military command. The command itself was paralyzed in confusion, the attack had come out of nowhere, on a holiday which meant most of the senior command had it off and the Tau'ri where using tactics that where alien to them. Thousands of small firefights where breaking out all over the map as bands of Tau'ri ambushed their colonial counterparts and the amount of reports coming in was overwhelming them.

**An Alarm where blaring as a hand reached up toward the beeping clock, with anger it slammed down on the snooze button before rolling back over on the bed knocking over a bottle of half-drunk whisky which had somehow managed to stay upright all night.** The sudden liquid on her body caused Kara Thrace to sit up in bed.

"Frak me sideways!" cursed the expert viper pilot as she got out of bed and looked at the large wet spot which covered her bed. "Looks like I have to do the laundry today, great."

Kara walked out of her bedroom in her which hung over the main body of the cheap apartment she rented in Delphi on Caprica. The whole place was a mess with half-finished paintings that belonged more in a struggling artiest then one of the best pilots in the colonial navy. She had finally gotten some time off and decided she would head back to this place to see if she had a place to go outside of the military.

"I should have stayed where I was." complained Kara as she opened her fridge and pulled out a beer. She was about to make her breakfast and a drink would help with the hang over that came from a night of celebrating the anniversary of the end of the Cylon war. The party would go on for a few more days and maybe because she never took off or her record of being one of few pilots to shot down a Tau'ri meant she actually got all the holiday off. She broke put some frosted covered breakfast sticks into the toaster before turning on the TV. She turned away from the TV when she heard the pop of the toaster, she was halfway back to the kitchen when the sound kicked in.

"As you can see Hypatia is in totally disarray as military, police and government forces try to regain order however we have unconfirmed reports of gunfights breaking out across the city as bands of Tau'ri terrorists attack behind the line of battle." Reported a male voice as Kara spun around to see the famous crossroads of Ares in the center Hypatia. The reporter was maybe a couple of floors above the statue of Ares behind him was the hill of Heroes but instead of the flag of the 75th flying over the hill it was the blue and silver flag of the Tau'ri. "We are also getting multiple reports about where the line of battle is but are working hard to get you that information."

"By the Lords of Kobol, they Tau'ri are idiots with the fleet over Tauron they are as good as dead." Said Kara as suddenly the TV changed to show the image of one of the Hercules class battlestars going up in a fireball after a single beam of green light ripped through it. The beer in Kara's hands dropped to the floor and covered her feet with liquid but her blood was running cold as the images of a broken and destroyed colonial fleet filled the screen. "By the Lords of Kobol."

"The Colonial Navy has pulled back to Caprica and we are awaiting statements from the President and other high ranking government officials." said the reporter "Priest Spiro head of the Holy Order of Zeus and elder brother to the vice president is releasing a statement right now."

The image changed to show Priest Spiro standing in front of some temple, on Sagittaron flanked by other holy men and women.

"These Godsless denier have launched an attack against us and have decided to carry out their attack on one of the most holy days of followers of the Lords of Kobol. Lord Ares the God of War and Protector of Tauron will not allow them to go unpunished and they will soon find that they will be crushed by the might of our military, the brilliance of our leaders and most of our or combined faith." stated Priest Spiro "So say us all."

The imagine changed back to the news room where the woman held a piece of paper.

"We have also gotten word from the military all off duty personal are ordered to report to their station or the nearest colonial base for deployment." stated the reporter as Kara rushed to get dressed and get out the door.

**The sound of gunfire and explosions could be heard in the distance but the men and women of the French combat engineers, while others fought with tanks and APC they fought with bulldozers and steamrollers. **

"Move…move!" yelled their commander as a modified APCs equipped with dozens of mower blades cut through the tall corn like crop which was common on Tauron farms. As the mowers cut down the grass trucks came in behind them with large metal planking with holes cut into them to make them lighter to carry. The men and women quickly laid out the metal planking which linked together like flooring. They were lucky land was already flat and the farmer had removed the large stones from their field. It limited their problems by half as they made an airstrip large enough to land even a Pelican transport.

They were just finishing when a large pelican moved in for a landing one the strip, as it lined up the ground engines used simple lights to mark the runway for the pilots. The massive transport landed and rolled to a stop on a recently set up parking lot. The back ramp lowered as a Puma light recon vehicle rolled off followed by a small number of troops. Then the main cargo rumbled off the back of the Pelican as the first Lion heavy tank arrived on Tauron. When the tank was unloaded the Pelican powered up again and moved to the far end of the runway, as it did a second Pelican was lining up for a landing. When it landed, and pulled into the unloading area the first took off to head back to Valhalla to pick up more cargo that couldn't come through the gate. As they were ascending they passed by the large Hadrian class transports which were taking up positions over the planet. Inside each where the main invasion force which would soon begin landing on the planet.

**On the other side of the river and far outside of the combat by colonial standards a line of colonial army trucks and a handful of armored vehicles and tanks moved down the road.** They were moving at what was double time for colonial forces on the move meaning that all their soldiers where actually in trucks and they were moving as fast as the Pallas could go, so just over 30 miles an hour. Their goal was simple they were to reach Hypatia and then push across the bridge destroying the small force holding it before moving into the city and the hill of heroes. The operation was to begin at dawn and it was hoped that they would be across the river and at the base of the hill by nightfall. There they would wait and take the hill the following morning. The vehicles rolled on down the road toward the distance sound of gunfire and battle. What none of the colonial soldiers knew was that while they were a safe distance away by any combat doctrine of that the colonials or the Cylons used they were no were near safe by Tau'ri standards.

They came in from the west having moved around the city of Hypatia and by flying over the bay that emptied out into the small sea, they had come in totally undetected. There was 16 of them in total and they were not friendly in the slightest way to the Colonials, these where Adder attack helicopters and they were hunting. The prey before them was almost too easy, a column of 65 colonial vehicles, a mix of trucks, APC, Armor and towed field guns all moving in a straight orderly column down a raised highway in the middle of flat open savannah. The drivers where even going with their headlights on with a police escort flashing lights in front of them to clear civilians out of the way all that light only brought them attention from the Adders.

"Are they asking to be killed?" inquired one of the Adder pilots as they began to form up into attack formation.

"Well the only way that it could be easier would be if they stopped." Reported another pilot as the Adders spread out into a U shape so that they surrounded the enemy on 3 sides with the only way out being if they ran back the way they came.

"Any anti-air?" inquired the flight leader

"I got some flak AA guns on a mounted truck but they are moving." reported another pilot

"Same here." Confirmed another as each one of the Adders painted a target for their laser guided anti-vehicle missiles. The targets of each bird was transmitted to the flight leader as she did a quick check to make sure no one had a lock on the same target as someone else. Once she was satisfied she confirmed it to everyone. There were 65 vehicles in total and once they started shooting it would be first come first serve when it came to kills but killing 16 in the first volley will confused anyone.

"Alright fire on my command." Ordered their commander as she double checked to make sure all the anti-air guns where in the first kill group. "3…2…1…execute."

With that she and all 15 other pilots fired their missiles into the colonial column, the effects where devastating as the anti-vehicle missiles slammed into the colonial vehicles. The heavy armor on the Pallas meant that that the crew had a good chance of making through a hit but the lighter armored vehicles and the unarmored trucks full of soldiers where doomed. Fire and explosion ripped through the air as the stunned colonials reacted poorly to being caught in a fight behind the lines.

Meanwhile the Adder's danced around them firing missiles into their line each missile brought death and with exception of one which overflew its target truck when it went into the ditch each one strike home. The colonials fired back firing blinding into the night with small arms and even a Pallas fired off its main gun but night vision goggles where rare among the rank and file of colonial foot soldiers and the Adder's where dark shapes in a dark sky. Only the heat vision on some the vehicles managed to get a glimpse of an Adder when the firing of one of the missiles gave off a heat source large enough for them to detect.

When all the vehicles where burning a handful of Adders opened with their nose mounted machine guns doing a couple of passes over the convoy before disappearing into the night. When they finally left the entire force was reduced to only a few dozen combat ready soldiers with no vehicles of any kind and mounds of dead and wounded.

**The streets of Hypatia was in a state of disarray from colonial standards, civilians ran away from gunfire the only issue was that gunfire was everywhere.** The military, police and armed civilians where trying to hold back the tide of Tau'ri coming down from the hill of heroes. The issue was that the defenders where not equipped to fight against a fully armed attacking force and they were not trained to deal with enemies which would fight dirty by colonial standards.

Tau'ri were fighting with small bands of special forces which could move quickly through the streets and strike the defending colonials as they tried to form a line against the main force. They were harassing movement of colonial forces by preforming ambushes, sniper attacks and using the city against those who called it home. The police and military were following a playbook which was drawn during the Cylon war when they feared that the hill would fall. That playbook called for forming of a defense line by blocking off multiple roads to make a straight line. They would even surrender whole city blocks to set up lines, this would have been effective against the Cylons who moved slowly and straight forward it was the wrong move against the Tau'ri.

At one of the main roadblocks a Colonial Pallas tank sat in the middle of the road with a handful of police cars and two Phrygian recon vehicles. The road before them was long and straight with a slight curve at the far end. This had been the parade route and as such the six lane avenue had been cleared of vehicles. A group of soldiers, police and armed civilians manned the defense line, most where armed with only pistols, shotguns and a few rifles.

"Any word on reinforcements?" inquired the tank commander as he stood in the copula of his Pallas.

"The bridge is under attack by Tau'ri forces and they can't cross until they clear them out." Explained the wireless operator who was using police wireless system to stay in touch with command.

"Why would they attack the bridge they can't reach it for a whole day at best." Stated a former marine who held his pistol close. "It would take hours for a tank to reach even this location and nothing they could possibly have could stand against a Pallas."

Just as he finished a round slammed into the Pallas, the explosion caused the ring which held the heavy turret to slide off. The heavy armor kept it in exploding and it was still in the fight.

"What the frak!" yelled the former Marine as he turned to look down the road, there at the far end of road he could just see the front of a strange looking tank poking out of the side of the curve. It was in such a position that that only part of the tank was poking out from the behind a building on the far end of the street.

"Target! Max Range!" yelled the stunned commander of the Pallas was bleeding from multiple shrapnel wounds. "Armor piercing."

With that the loader in the Pallas hit a button as the automatic loader began the process of loading a heavy armor piercing shell into the barrel. Since it was so heavy a person couldn't handle it with easy and so the autoloader was required but they were much slower than a human. The shell had just been selected and was about to be slammed into breach when the second armored pricing round from the Tau'ri tank hit the Pallas. This time the weakened armor gave way as the round pierced the armor and turned the inside into a mini volcano killing everyone inside.

The sight of the Pallas being destroyed filled everyone of the defenders with fear, the two Phyrgains opened up with their machine cannons but their target was so far away that their rounds flew wild slamming into buildings but not the target itself.

"We have to hold this position, remember it is only a single tank and it will take a while for them to reach us." said the former marine as another round slammed into one of the two Phyrgains. The lighter armor on the recon vehicle meant that they instantly turned into fireballs. The second Phyrgain was also destroyed with similar shots, so that only foot soldiers remained. Since all of them where either current or former soldiers, marines or police officers they held their ground as they took cover preparing to deal with one of the hardest training scenarios, a single tank.

"Everyone take heart." said a solider as he moved forward with a large anti-tank rocket on his shoulder. "When it gets close we will turn it into scrap metal."

Just then the tank moved forward moving out from behind cover of the building, but it didn't come alone. First came another tank, and then another and finally another until four tanks covered the avenue along with infantry and other armored vehicles which were moving toward the center of the city.

"By the Lords of Kobol 4 tanks!" yelled someone, every one of them knew that the in training scenarios soldiers never go up against more than 2 tanks without armor support, 4 was unheard of. In the Colonial military the largest formation of armor on the battlefield was 6 and that was odd. Tanks worked along or in pairs not four at once. "Quickly get on the wireless we have a major armor group heading down the main avenue!"

**Outside the city, Colonel Jager stood in the copula of his tank as it along with almost a 200 other tanks, APCs, recon vehicles and forward artillery observers rolled over the flat planes of Tauron at speed which caused the colonial civilians who saw them to stand by with their mouths open in amazement.** Ahead of the main body a small force of puma recon vehicles headed toward their main target was a nearby colonial base. Sitting between them and their target was a small farming town of only a couple of miles from the base.

The town people where gathering in the public square as the local militia officer was handing out rifles to the men and women who had gathered there. They were also handing out uniforms however most had gone home and got their own uniforms on before going to the town center where the weapons where stored. It was a tradition on Tauron that a small amount of weapons where stored in town armories just enough to defend the town against a small threat, this tradition had made Tauron the hardest for the Cylon to take and now they hoped to do the same to the Tau'ri.

"Can you hear me?" said a reporter as he stood in the public square, behind him where multiple man and women in uniforms standing in line waiting for weapons to be passed out.

"Yes, Rick we hear you." said the reporter in the main office back in the besieged Hypatia

"Yes, I am in the small farming community of Yana and behind me you see the people collecting their rifles and ammo before moving against the Tau'ri positions on the Hill of Heroes." said the reporter "The Tau'ri forces are reported to be serval miles away from our position…."

As the reporter kept talking a strange vehicle came sweeping around the corner at a high rate of speed, at first some of the people thought it was a colonial vehicle but then they saw that it wasn't. The colonials quickly began to raise their rifles at the Tau'ri but they were too slow as the three pumas opened with their own weapons, two of them where armed with 50 caliber machine guns and the other one had a mini gun.

"My Gods!" yelled the reporter as the heavy machine guns ripped into the colonials who were standing in rows and columns. Flesh was ripped apart as the heavy rounds turned men and women into paste and hunks of meat. The colonials fired back but they were armed mostly with bolt action rifles and while their rifles where 50 caliber rounds themselves they didn't throw out the amount of rounds as the machine guns did. The reporter ran into a nearby building trying to take cover, behind him his camera man followed as they ran up the stairs to the second floor. Screams joined the music of battle as the Tau'ri vehicles moved forward cutting down anyone who even seemed to be a threat. The cameraman broadcast the image of a man running away from the battle in full uniform with a rifle in his hands, he was about to round the corner and disappear down another road when he was mowed down by the machine gun fire. Finally the machine guns fell silent as the camera man poked the camera around the corner and caught the image of the three Tau'ri vehicles moving over the battlefield, two of them mounted the curb and dove around the bloodbath cutting a path in front of the courthouse while the 3rd simple drove over the dead bodies as they moved on. Smoke could clearly be seen coming from the barrels of the guns.

"Can you see this at back at the studio?" inquired the report

"Yes." confirmed the studio with a shaky voice. "I thought that the Tau'ri where miles away."

"It must be a raiding or recon force." stated the reporter as a rumbling sound caused him to look out the window only to see four more Tau'ri vehicles, three APCs and a tank roll down the street. Like the two other vehicles two of the APCs and the tank mounted the curved and took positions on the grassy field outside of the city hall.

The third APC stopped outside of the building where the crew was hiding, the soldiers knew where they were as they appeared before them dressed in the power armor and full visor helmet that the Colonial public had always seen them in. What was new was instead of the black uniforms that they had seen them in now they were in a strange camo pattern not the olive-green standard in the colonies or even the black of space stationed marines.

"Sir, we have what appears to be a news crew." said one of them as they moved toward and grabbed the camera.

"Turn it off and destroy it, but do not harm the civilians." ordered the squad leader as the solider used his power armor to crush the camera in his hands cutting the link with the studio which was broadcasting images live across all the colonies.

**Down in the command bunker Secretary Cain stood across a table from the commanding General in charge of the defense of Hypatia and the city in general.** The table was covered with a street map of Hypatia with multiple green dots showing colonial positions along with red dots showing known Tau'ri positions.

"How could they be pushing through our defenses so fast?" inquired Cain as a wireless operator came and moved a figure which stood for a Colonial tank and moved it back toward the heart of the city. "They have already taken the entire hill side and are driving forward toward the heart of the city."

"Ma'am, they are going up against mostly police with a handful of military units which had been in the city to show off to public." explained the General "I have an armored force on the way, when they arrive we can show the Tau'ri what a real fight is like."

"Sir." said an aid as he handed a report to the general, his eyes widened before he slammed his fist onto the table.

"What?" inquired Cain

"If this is true, then the force nearest to us have taken heavy damage from an air attack of some kind." stated the General "It shouldn't be much of an issue an air attack can't stop armored forces in their entirety not without using a nuke and we would have heard about that. Depending on the damage it could slow down our counter attack."

"When will we launch our counter attack?" inquired Cain

"Sunrise." Stated the General as he lead her over to another table which showed a map of the surrounding area of Hypatia. "Form our best intelligence, the Tau'ri smuggled in a small force made up mostly of field guns in the historic battlefield and are trying to set up landing points for a larger force in the surrounding area. Likely in these three locations here, here and here."

"Why those?" inquired Cain

"Because it is where I would land them and they are only a 20 miles away from Fort Penelope, we will gather there and surround the Tau'ri forces and crush them as we move in from all sides." Stated the General "Intelligence believes they likely have maybe a division in the field against us. I put it as less than a division that is around 10,000 soldiers."

"Can they take the city with that many soldiers?" inquired Cain

"Yes." admitted the General "But they wouldn't be able to do much more than that and landing forces will take hours."

"And we can catch the Tau'ri as they unload their forces." Stated Cain with a smile "Maybe we can turn this around, crush them on the ground and trap their fleet. They have to move forward to use their FTL, if we prevent them from doing that we can trap their fleet and end this war once and for all."

**Above their heads onboard the Missouri General Loeng nodded her head in approval as she watched a real time up to the second map of the battle for Hypatia.** Hypatia was almost a third of the way under their control and the colonial forces where in full retreat, the ground forces where advancing into the heart of the city toward their version of time square. If they took that and the temple of Ares which sat there would be a major blow to colonial spirit, having the temple of the god of war under Tau'ri control would be a blow to colonial spirits. It also helped that taking the temple was a requirement for taking the city and the forces in the city where driving forward like a spear leaving either side of the city in colonial hands for the moment. Currently the Colonial forces had three ways out of the city, neither of the options good. The subways which ran under the city was one option but they were being cleared out by her forces and that way wouldn't last long. The two real options where the tunnels which ran to the North and South under the hills and which they hadn't attacked on propose.

"General Leong we have colonial forces heading out of the tunnel to leave the city." reported an aid as he pointed toward a line of colonial buses which was known to be full of soldiers leaving the city. "We can drop forces down and take the tunnels, trapping them."

"Soldiers on death ground lose a sense of fear and lost all sense of fear." said General Leong as she remembered a saying from the art of war. "I will not put them into death ground where they will fight or die, I will give them a way out so they will not fight in the city. Fighting in a city is horrible and much more dangerous, we will destroy them in the open field."

"Very good General." said the aid as General Loeng zoomed out to show the main landing area by the gate. In real time it was showing the arrival of an Indian Armored division, next in the line was an mounted infantry division from France followed by a Egyptian supply force. The Germans where already nearing Fort Penelope and with its capture they could bring in multiple transports. Other units where setting up airfields for landing forces across the flat land of Tauron and within a couple of minutes the small landing ships would begin their decent.

"Everything is going according to plan." stated General Leong as she looked at the time table which estimated how long it would take to reach each target point. The marines on the bridge where slightly behind but they were facing stiffer than expected forces.

"Ma'ma when do we want to send the request for total surrender?" inquired the aid

"When Hypatia falls and other key objectives are reached." Stated General Leong as she looked at the battle raging below, she knew this was all toward a single goal, to end the war. "Let's hope they accept because if they don't then we must use a much harder stick to beat them into submission."

**Fort Penelope was all but taken with small bands of Colonials still fighting inside some of the office buildings but the fort had all but fallen. **Tau'ri special forces had claimed the fort and most of all the heavy runway intact, some of the out buildings where burning but that really didn't matter to Drugov.

The sound of vehicles coming toward them caused all the members of the assault team to hold their breaths for a moment, until they saw through their night vision that it was in fact three Pumas heading toward them.

"Right on time, that is German efficacy for you." said Drugov as he stood up from cover and raised his rifle over his head so that the drivers of the vehicles could see him in their own night vision system. The three Pumas came to a stop in front of him.

"Need any help?" inquired the Lieutenant in charge of the recon force in front of the main body.

"No we have pretty much under control." reported Drugov "We do have some hold outs in a few side buildings but we are clearing them out."

"Good, well the main column is about ten minutes behind us." reported the Lieutenant "And if you don't need us we will move on to our next objective."

"Move along, we have everything under control here." reported Drugov as the recon force moved on toward their next objective a launching point for the assault on a nearby city of Lezha which was going to be a major operation scheduled to begin at sunrise. Taking Lezha would be key to expend the landings sites into a single large control area, but Lezha wouldn't be an easy fight.

**Above their heads hundreds of Hadrian Class transport ships had moved into position, as one they opened up their cargo bays to show multiple smaller transport ships each one about the size of a shipping container.** Each one broke away from their mother ship and began to descend toward the planet, the heat from their entry burning bright against their sides as they dove into the atmosphere. From the surface it looked as if a massive meteor shower was taking place as the transport moved in.

**Down on Tauron a little boy looked out of his bedroom window at the lights in the sky, he had hadn't been able to sleep and now both of his parents where awake which was odd considering the hour.**

"Fine, we will get in the car and head to a safe place." Said his mother's voice as she walked in to find her little boy up and looking out the window. "Timmy your up?"

"Mommy look at the shooting stars." said Timmy as he pointed toward all the lights in the sky, his mom moved to the window and looked up at all the lights.

"By the Lords of Kobol." Said his mom stunned for a moment at all the lights in the sky. Then she saw a figure in a strange looking uniform with a rifle in his hands jump over the fence in the backyard. She saw him and he saw her but he made no move to come toward them instead he kept going on his path, moments later five more men and women dressed in similar uniforms moved across her backyard.

"Beth, we need to get going we need to get somewhere safe." said her husband in the other room.

"Where would that be?" inquired Beth to herself.

**Onboard each transport was platoon of 30 men and women, they were rocking and rolling as their transport headed to the planet.** Like the Higgins boats of WW2 these ships where carrying the bulk of the invasion force, only this time instead of hitting a beach they were hitting a planet. Behind them would come full size Hadrian class transport which carried the vehicle and other equipment but they lacked ability to spread out like the smaller ships. They landed with a roar of engines as they came to a rest on the surface. Once they landed the front ramp lowered allowing the men and women to quickly get off to begin to carry out their part of the invasion and the downfall of the 12 colonies of Kobol.

**Well I hope you liked this chapter, in my own mind only about two hours have passed since the operation began. Now I hope you all keep reading and until next time. Wilkins75.**


	68. Chapter 68

**Chapter 68 Raise the Flags**

The skies of Colonial world of Tauron belonged to the Tau'ri in almost every way possible. Tau'ri transport pelicans where flying in troops and supplies with no signs of enemy viper or raptors on their radar scopes. It wasn't as if the Colonials where not trying to get into the air, they were trying extremely hard it is just that they were failing at every turn. The bulk of the vipers and raptors which had been stationed on the planet and were ready to take off had taken off when the 1st Tau'ri ship arrived and they had gone up to defend the space above their world, few returned. The colonial military still had vipers and raptors ready to fight, it was just they were lacking pilots. The pilots had gone out like so many other military personal to celebrate the holidays in towns with drinking and other events leaving only a small force behind on alert. That alert force was now gone and the pilots where rushing back to base, but some of them where so drunk they couldn't stand up yet along fly. That left their birds lined up on the runways in perfect rows and columns, in a normal war by colonial standards these birds where perfectly safe outside of a certain range from the battlefield, to the Tau'ri they were targets waiting to be destroyed.

"This is Elsa's Revenge we are lining up on our bombing run." said Andrea as she sat in the cockpit of her Condor Bomber, to either side where four more Condor Bombers with an escort of six Eagle fighters and four Taita fighter bombers. Their target was a fair distance away from the battlefields around Hypatia but it was rich with targets. As they journeyed toward their targets the horizon began to brighten as the sun began to rise on their part of the battlefield. As the sun rose the airbase the attacking force saw rows and columns of vipers and raptors sitting out in the open. There was surely some in the large hangers but the number of birds took the Tau'ri's breath away.

"Still no fighters?" inquired Andrea to her copilot and bombardier.

"We have four blips at the far end of our sensors and heading away." Reported the copilot "They must think this base is safe distance from any attacks. They aren't even throwing up any anti-air defenses, strange."

"Well we know what to do." Said Andrea as she moved a hand toward a switch. "Opening bomb bays doors…now."

With a flip of the switch the massive bomb bays located inside the ship opened and large routing drums which held multiple different weapons where lowered into firing position. Along the wings the rocket pods where armed as all four bombers selected their targets. Another thing happened when the bomb bays opened, it broke the stealthy profile which had hidden the bombers from Colonial Dradis alerting the base that they were about to be attack. It was already too late as the missiles began to fly off the rails and as they passed over the runway the old fashion gravity bombs began to fall. The missiles slammed into the aircraft sitting on the ground and into the hangers while the gravity bombs made giant holes into the runway making it useless to anyone for a while. With their work done and the base alight with fire and covered with smoke the Condors turned and headed away from the base, they would rearm on board one of the carriers sitting over Tauron before going out again.

Having no need of fighter escort their Eagle fighters broke off and went hunting for any target they could find while the Taita fighter bombers moved on to attack a nearby town and the factories which were stationed there.

**Above the Colonial World of Tauron the might of the Tau'ri fleet had replaced the might of the Colonial fleet.** The remains of that fleet was now either in full retreat from their world or nothing but wrecks floating dead in space. There was still the occasional explosions as the explosive shells went off inside the remains of the battlestars. It was a scary sight for every Colonial who saw it on TV but it also sent a chill down the spin of the humanoid Cylons who were gathered on board a modified Archimedes class science vessel which was currently being used to observe the battle. Among the massive ships the small ship which was about the size of a Daedalus class ship only with hangers that went all the way up to the front of the ship didn't stand out.

The humanoid Cylons had a private observation room with a window which showed the scene out in space, along the wall was multiple TVs which was showing the news broadcasts out of Tauron both the Colonial News and the embedded Tau'ri news crews which were just beginning to broadcast from the surface.

"How…how are they pulling this off?" inquired a two as she watched Hypatia, a city that they had planned to nuke because it would be too hard to conquer was in the process of being conquered in a single night.

"They are fighting in ways that the Colonials simply do not understand." Stated a three "I can hardly understand it myself, they rely on speed, overwhelming firepower and deep strikes to simply confuse their enemies."

"We picked the right side." said the one as the other Cylons nodded their heads in agreement.

"The Colonials will launch counter attacks." Stated an eight "This is Tauron, the world of Ares the Lord of War and maybe the 3rd most important colony to their war effort behind only Scorpio with its shipyards and Cancercon with its heavy industry. They will launch a counter attack both down there and up in space."

"We just saw between a third and a quarter of the entire colonial navy go up in a single battle they couldn't risk sending in more ships to die." countered a Five

"They wouldn't have a choice, except for Aquaria they never lost control of the space over an entire world in our war with them." stated the Eight, the other Cylons knew that wasn't totally true some of the smaller colonial mining colonies on worlds but not any of the major worlds aside from Aqauria. "We all saw what the Tau'ri did with Aquaria if having Tauron under their control is something the colonial public will never accept and would be impossible for their military to deal with. They have to counter attack they don't have a choice."

Within the same star system the Battlestar Galactica floated over the Capital World of the 12 colonies of Kobol, Caprica. Admiral William Adama had just closed his eyes and fallen asleep when his phone by this bed rung and he got the news that would have been unbelievable only moments earlier. A Tau'ri fleet, an invasion fleet had not only attacked the most heavily defended world in the colonies Tauron but they had blown through the colonial defense line with little to no loss while crushing the defenders.

"The Naxos has reported that they are combat ready." said Admiral Adama's old friend and his right hand in these situations, Saul Tigh. "That adds another battlestar to our assault force."

"We need more." said Adama as he looked at the map of the star system, it showed the known the location of the Tau'ri forces on the surface it would be a straight forward fight which would normally mean a colonial victory. The counter attack plans, which dated back to the Cylon War 40 years ago was to move against the enemy forces from 5 sides using the planet itself to box in the attacking force. "We aren't dealing with an enemy controlling a small portion of space above a planet or even half of it, we lost all of it. We can't box them in we would be spread out too thin."

"They are amassed over Hypatia command will focus or attack there." stated Saul as Adama nodded his head in agreement.

"We should get the reinforcements in the forms of the 2nd and 8th fleets and all our ships monitoring the Cylon line have been recalled." stated Adama "They should happen within the next two hours, to get everything ready it will be near dawn when we are able to hit them."

"We should get some support from ground based missiles when we attack, if our friends in Green are ready in time." added Saul

"Agreed, we need to reform what remains of the Viper and Raptor cores, Caprica and Gemenon will bring every raptor and viper to this flight as well as every ship that can fire a gun." Said Adama as Saul walked around the table to stand beside his old friend, they both leaned over the table so that he they could whisper to each other without the multitude of young men and women trying to get a handle on the situation.

"The Tau'ri just destroyed just under a 1/3rd of our entire fleet, there is no possible way we can launch any attack that would have a hope of driving them off without the rest of the fleet and support from the ground." Stated Saul "And by support I mean every viper and raptor on Tauron and that is a fraken tone."

"I agree." Confirmed Adama as he tried not to think about where his own son was, they had gotten confirmation that he was shot down and the emergency beacon went off but with so many going off it was impossible to know where it was. "We may have hurt them when it came to their fighter force but aside from reports of one ship pulling back and another ship dead in space we haven't been able to do anything more than scratch the paint on their ships."

"With their shields, we likely didn't even do that." confirmed Saul "Without the rest of the fleet, I mean every single ship we have we don't stand a chance and with Tau'ri forces on the ground how do we deal with them. If we can't retake space or our counterparts in the army and marines can't push them back then the only way we could hurt them is a nuclear strike and I don't want to see what the Tau'ri would do to us if we used nuclear weapons."

"We know what they would do, they would respond in kind and if what they claim is true then they have the power to cause a star to go super nova and…"

"And that would destroy whole worlds and billions of lives in an instant." Stated Saul as a chill ran up the spin of the idea of worlds full of people going up in fire filled his mind.

"And the Tau'ri consider Chemical and Biological weapons the same as nuclear." Added Adama as he reached over and grabbed a binder which contained all known information about the Tau'ri he flipped through it until he found the correct page. He ran his hand down the page until he found that part of the report. "Yes, it says they don't consider weapons like tear gas, pepper spray and the like as Chemical Weapons that deserve a response in kind but all other are."

"Tear gas that maybe useful to the ground ponders but not us." Stated Saul "We need to find a way to get the upper hand on the Tau'ri."

"Sir, Admiral Adama." Said a wireless operator drawing the attention of the old warrior. "We have a special transfer request coming in from Delphi."

"We don't have time to deal with that." stated Saul

"Sir, it is Starbucks she is at Delphi defense base and requests to rejoin our viper squadron." Explained the Wireless operator. Adama lowered his head for a moment, he knew the general orders for emergency call up, if someone couldn't be sent to their assigned unit they were to be sent to another unit that needed them. The battlestar had a full viper and raptor force while ships who had made it back from Tauron didn't. By regulation Starbucks should go to one of those ships.

"Send her up." ordered Adama as he looked at Saul. "If we are going into battle I want the best pilot I can get."

"I agree, and if this fails no one will really care about you taking a pilot and if this works no one will care either." added Saul

**Lee Adama moved alongside a road staying low and near the field which was high and ready for harvest, if he had to he would duck into the field.** In his hands was his standard pistol but he could hear machine guns and assault rifles going off in the distance and his pistol would be no match for them or even a bolt action rifle. He was about to come to a T juncture in the road when he saw the street light over the junction get shot out, he got down on his belly and watched as a dark mass moved into view. It was clearly a vehicle of some kind but it wasn't any colonial vehicle he had seen and through the faint moon light he could see a handful of Tau'ri on foot beside it. They stood there for a moment looking around.

"They must have heat vision in those helmets." said Lee to himself as he remembered the horror stories about how the Cylon's could see through darkness with infrared vision. They had decimated whole Colonial units in the early stages of the war but like their human creators they couldn't keep order at night so when night fell each side basically stopped. Judging from how the Tau'ri where acting that was far from the case, for a moment Lee thought one of the Tau'ri was raising his weapon at him but no shots rang out. Instead the Tau'ri soldiers moved back to the vehicle and seamed to jump onto the sides of the vehicle using hand and foot holds before it took off down the road at a high rate of speed. With them gone Lee got up and keep moving when he reached the crossroads he looked down the road the way the Tau'ri vehicle went but saw no tail lights.

"It didn't have any headlights either." stated Lee as he keeps moving the opposite way that that the Tau'ri vehicle had gone. About ten minutes after spotting the Tau'ri vehicle he spotted a pair of headlights heading toward him, he got down on his belly again only to jump up when he saw that it was a Colonial Army Phrygian. The heavy armed vehicle was a welcomed site to Lee but the sudden movement almost caused the soldiers to fire at him.

"A pilot?" said the gunner inside his turret as he looked down at him.

"Captain Lee Adama, Viper Pilot from the Hercules." reported Lee

"Where is the Hercules and the other ships in the fleet we could use some viper and raptor cover or better yet have their guns fire on Tau'ri positions." Said the Lieutenant in command of the vehicle.

"Gone." said Lee as the soldier's eyes widened at the news. "The whole fleet is gone or fell back to Caprica, the Tau'ri control space now."

"Well then we must beat them on the ground." said the Lieutenant "We are heading toward Lezha get in."

"Thanks." said Lee as he jumped into the back seat as the recon vehicle took off down the road.

Above their heads in the darkness of the night a pair of Osprey ground attack aircraft where out hunting, the ground attack aircraft was based off the old American A-10 Thunderbolt better known as the A-10 Warthog. These birds didn't have the range to go to the colonies and had so far not fired a shot in this war, that was about to change.

"I have a colonial convoy at our 9 o'clock." reported the lead pilot

"I got them." Confirmed the second Osprey as she noticed the number of vehicles and their type. "Kind hard to miss when they have a police escort, looks to be a dozen or so heavy trucks and their version of a APC. I don't see any armor."

"Me either." Confirmed the lead pilot as he looked at them again. "I don't see any anti-air, they must not be worried about air attacks."

"Well let's show them how wrong they are." said his second as the two Ospreys turned to make their attack run. Because of the flat level ground, they were going to come at the convoy from the sides and fire their missiles into the sides of the vehicles. Under each of their wings where multiple anti-armor missiles and even some old fashion rocket pods for area effect. They came in slow and began to fire their missiles into the vehicles, when each missile hit the vehicle that was hit became nothing more than twisted burning metal. The two osprey pilots also fired their main forward guns, like the A-10 which they were based off they had a rapid firing cannon in their nose which tore through armor. The colonials had no idea what hit them as the two birds flew over their heads before coming around for a second pass. Now they began to get return fire from small arms and machine guns but the colonials where firing into the darkness of the night and the Ospreys could see them. The second pilot pressed down on the trigger as the cannon ripped off thousands of cannon shells each second into a group of colonial soldiers. When she looked back at the damage she saw that while a handful where still moving most had stopped.

**The fight for Hypatia had reached a desperate point, smoke was rising from countless fires which were burning out of control, luckily the city was made out of stone and stone doesn't burn easy. **Everything else in those buildings did burn but it limited the chance of buildings falling into the streets, it didn't stop the street themselves from filling with smoke. This smoke blinded the Colonial defenders as they tried to move into defensive positions against the Tau'ri attackers.

"Frak, who can see through this." cursed a solider as he walked down a street filled with smoke, behind him was his fire team and a handful of cops and armed civilians. They had just faced down a column of Tau'ri four Tau'ri tanks, they had hoped to use an anti-tank missile to destroy the 1st tank but they never got a chance to fire but to fire from the Tau'ri solders. They were forced to turn and run, attempting to use side roads to escape the fire of the main Tau'ri force.

"We need to keep moving." said a cop "There is a police station about 3 blocks away, we can get weapons and more men there."

"Let's hope that it isn't in Tau'ri hands." stated the solider

"Impossible that is Police Headquarters it would be impossible for them to take even with four tanks." Stated the cop as the group headed toward the police station. "It is full of cops and even has heavy weapons and a multiple fully trained swat teams stationed there."

"Let's hope." said the solider as suddenly he a bullet slammed into his bullet proof vest sending him stumbling backwards as a second burst hit him in the face. Small arms fire began to rip into the small band of fighters. The colonials fired into the thick smoke hoping to hit whoever was firing at them, the return fire was also random as both sides fired blindly at each other through the smoke.

Standing inside a broken into shop watching the firefight outside was Colonel O'Neill and his squad of special forces members. They had taken cover inside the shop to get a little rest before moving on, they had already cleared out a nearby police station with the help of the American 1st armored division and some Australian infantry. Their next step was to keep moving toward the center of the city and link up with the marines currently in the process of taking the bridge across the river.

"This is somewhat fun to watch." Said a French member of his team as they looked out through the thick smoke and darkness using the advanced image enhancers/night vision systems built into their helmets with it they could watch the firefight breaking out between two small bands of Colonials. The two groups had stumbled across each other and began shooting at each other, through the smoke they had no idea that they were shooting friendly units. "They are killing each other, saving us the effort."

"I am sure this has happened to us in the past multiple times." stated Jack as he shot a colonial who was rushing to take cover in the store. His three round burst drew no attention from the others outside as the colonials worked very hard to kill each other. A can landed only a couple of yards away from them and began to release a gas, judging by how a nearby woman reacted it was tear or maybe pepper gas. The gas drifted into the store with no effect on Jack or any Tau'ri, the advance filters on his helmet prevented the gas from effecting him. His suit also had a small air tank that could last up to an hour in a more dangerous gas or biological attack. More than enough to either leave the area or get a beam out from the ships in orbit.

"Let's get moving." ordered O'Neill as the rest of the Tau'ri special forces members formed up and with a handful of bursts from their weapons killed the Colonials who had been busy trying to kill each other in the streets outside.

**Only a couple of miles away the colonials where trying very hard to kill the marine force which was attempting to take the bridge over the river.** The fighting was not just limited to the roadway over the bridge or even the subway line which ran on a second lower deck of the bridge but into the very heart of the bridge. The bridge predated the Cylon war and even space flight in the Colonies had with it's thick heavy stone, cement and steel construction which had made it through the Cylon attempts to drop it into the river. To the American Marines assaulting the bridge it reminded them of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City. Inside the stone support towers a mini firefight was being held as the Marines tried to push the colonial defenders up and out. The thing was that the Colonials had excellent defensive positions from the high ground on a turning staircase which gave the Tau'ri only one route to attack.

A 50-caliber bullet fired from a Colonial bolt action rifle impacted the stone wall directly across from where Torren Shepard was taking cover behind a thick metal guard rail that prevented people from falling into the void between the stairs. Torren waited as he gripped his rifle and wait. Another bullet slammed into the wall just above where the first one hit, then still waiting another one hit.

"3…2...1." said Torren as he counted off the seconds that it would take the man to work the bolt. Sheppard popped up from behind cover and pointed his assault rifle at the spot where he knew the man was hiding, he had timed it perfectly as the man who was working the bolt of his rifle came out from behind cover only to get a burst from Sheppard's rifle. His gun fell with a clang as Shepard and the marines who were pinned down with him moved up to the next landing.

"Flashbang out!" yelled a voice behind him as someone threw a flashbang up and toward the Colonials. The Marines didn't want to use explosives and destroy their only way up but the flashbang did stun the Colonials allowing them to rush them mowing them down as they moved up. They repeated the process as they cleared out the Colonials and reached the top of the 1st support tower, the last colonial defender surrendered as he was met with a dozen Tau'ri guns.

"Command this is Red Wolf 4, we have taken the first tower." reported the Lieutenant in charge of the assault.

"Good job Red Wolf 4." confirmed some woman's voice on the other end of the radio line. "Raise the flag."

"Understood." said the Lieutenant as she pulled out a large Tau'ri flag from a pack which was being carried by another marine. They lowered the Colonial flag and raised the silver and blue flag of the Tau'ri, while it wasn't as big as the one on the Hill of Heroes the people in the streets did see it and the news crews which where broadcasting the images live across the colonies did see it and broadcasted the image of another icon of the Colonial People falling to the Tau'ri.

**At Hypatia City Hospital sat outside the main drive of the Tau'ri forces but the situation was just short of a panic as the doctor and nurses who were tasked with helping the sick and injured where overwhelmed by the number of people attempting to find safety inside the building.** In addition to the wounded which was flowing through the doors there where normal civilians attempting to find safety inside the building. On the outside teams of nurses where busy sorting through the victims, those that could be saved where given a color tag which told the level of attention needed while those who were doomed to death where given a white tag. Unwounded civilians attempting to find a safe place where guided toward a nearby parking structure. The flow was never ending as the gunfire came ever closer.

"I need some help over here!" yelled a nurse as she tried with everything she had to keep a man who had been shot in the neck from bleeding out. Blood was spraying out of the wound as he held onto the wound with all his might as his face grew ever paler.

She never heard them, she never heard the screams of people behind her or even the rumble of their vehicles. What made her look up was when a hand clad in a strange camo pattern with what looked to be a metal frame around one side came into view. She looked up and was face to face with three Tau'ri soldiers, two of them had guns out and looking at the crowd while the third was unarmed aside from a pistol in his holster and was looking at her. He turned away from her and looked at the man, the pale white face of the dying man was clear in his visor. Quickly he reached down and pulled a small pack from his belt and forcing the nurse's hand away poured the silver powder on the man's wound. Almost instantly the spray of blood stopped.

"This man will need a transfusion at once." ordered the Tau'ri before turning toward one of the other. "Private I need the rest of my team up here now."

"Yes, Doc." said one of the Tau'ri as he rushed back as the nurse noticed that APC was rolling past them as they moved around the hospital. That is when she also noticed a large patch on the man's arm, it appeared to be a red cross in a white square.

"I am a doctor, the rest of my team is coming to help you with your wounded." explained the Tau'ri doctor "Now is there a military leader here or a head doctor?"

"Yes, I'll take you to her." said the nurse in a frighten voice as she lead the two Tau'ri through the crowd of angry and scared people toward where another woman stood directing the response to this mass casualty event. The woman was wearing a white doctor's jacket but it was stained with blood, she stopped and looked wide eyed at the nurse with the two Tau'ri behind her.

"Doctor Elivet this is…"

"Doctor Cooper." introduced the Tau'ri Doctor "And we have informed the Colonials forces in the area that in order to avoid shooting civilians and you doctors that they can pull out without us firing, they have done so but that means you and everyone else here are now under our control."

"We aren't going to surrender to you!" yelled a wounded solider with a bullet wound in his shoulder. He rushed forward with all his strength and pulled the pistol out for the holster on the doctor's belt.

"Die Tau'ri scum!" yelled the solider as he pulled the trigger but the gun didn't fire, the doctor didn't even flinch but it was hard to tell with the helmet on. "What the Frak?"

"A smart chip, that gun will not fire unless you have a Tau'ri power armor on." Explained Doctor Cooper, in truth it wasn't totally true there was a way to reset it so it would fire but only someone trained on how the weapon worked could do it. He lowered his gun only to have the Tau'ri solider take it from him.

"Son, sit down your war is over." Said Doctor Cooper calmly before turning toward Doctor Elivet "Let's work together to save lives, I have my team here on the ground coming and I have hospital ships in orbit that can beam the worse cases up for emergency treatment."

"I don't have much of a choice do I." stated Doctor Elivet

"Not much of one, and of course all wounded Colonial Armed forces members are now POWs." explained Doctor Cooper as more people dressed in Tau'ri uniforms with that red cross symbol came forward, none of them had weapons aside from pistols but there were some who didn't have the cross symbol which were armed. "Now let's save some lives this night shall we?"

**The situation down in the command bunker was starting to calm down, not because the situation was getting better but because everyone was falling back.** The bridge had all but taken by Tau'ri forces but the Tau'ri hadn't pushed on beyond the park that lined each side of the river banks. Due to lack of forces they couldn't push the colonial defenders around the Hypatia military base off their base which was also the location of the bunker. The situation across the river in the main body of Hypatia wasn't much better the colonial forces made up of mostly police, military and armed civilians where falling back from the Tau'ri advance and moving off toward the two tunnels under the hills that ran North and South along the river side highway.

"They must be committing everything they have to the attack on Hypatia with these failed landing soldiers spread out over the map." reported the General as he pointed to the map which showed multiple small dots which showed confirmed Tau'ri sightings. They covered the map so that there was a lot more Tau'ri pins then colonial pins. "It looks bad but some of these are only small fireteams of four to six people and they are so spread out that they can't do us much harm outside of slowing our advance."

"Any major strength?" inquired Cain

"We have unconfirmed reports of large landings but it takes time to move everything and lets say they land and start moving more armored into the field they wouldn't get much more then 30 to 40 miles from their landing zone by dawn." Stated the General "And that is if they just start driving, it takes time to unload everything form up and start moving."

"We do have some intelligence that hint that the Tau'ri do use faster tanks then we do." Stated Cain

"Maybe a little faster maybe their top combat speed is 35 instead of 30, a man can only move so fast on foot." countered the General as suddenly yells filled the air as the guards around them raised their weapons. Cain and the General spun around to see a woman dressed in Tau'ri uniform, the guards raised their rifles only to see that the image flickered a bit showing that it was a hologram of some kind. Cain moved forward and stood strongly before this woman, then she recognized her as General Leong.

"So, I am guessing you want us to ask for terms." stated Cain as she looked at the holographic image of the Tau'ri women she had meet only a few months ago, she looked slightly order then she thought she would but wasn't sure if it was the hologram or something else.

"I am not giving or accepting terms." countered General Leong as she put her hands behind her back "I want utter defeat of your colonial military nothing short of total and unconditional surrender will be considered. The only thing I will give you is a chance to save the lives of your men and women in uniform and any civilians caught in the cross fire."

"And we will do the same, we are the 12 colonies of Kobol how many worlds do you have 2?" inquired Cain "You can end this now, surrender before the might of the Colonies trap you."

"5 now." Corrected General Leong ignoring the threat "However wouldn't it be more correct to call you the 11 Colonies of Kobol? I don't think, what's that world's name, Aquaria is much of a colony now."

General Leong paused as she enjoyed the look of rage on Secretary Cain and the General's face.

"Not that number of worlds really matter in this fight." stated General Leong "Your lack of experience in true war is showing itself and our technology has advanced even more since the last time we fought."

"4 months isn't going to make a difference? We have had 4 months to prepare." Stated Sectary Cain as General Leong simply smiled a knowing smile before chuckling to herself. "What!"

"Do you remember what Priest Spiro said to me at our little conference, time is on your side." stated General Leong as Sectary Cain nodded.

"And you responded with we shall have to see about that." answered Cain "What does that have to do with anything."

"Maybe this will give you a hint about how outclassed you are and convince you to surrender, it hasn't been 4 months for or anyone else outside of the 12 Colonies." stated General Leong "We have this little handy item called a Time Dilation Device, with it we can speed up or slow down time within an area and we used it on you to slow down time within your worlds."

Cain's eyes widened as her heart race picked up, somehow she didn't know why but she knew that General Leong was telling the truth.

"That space station over a black hole that you made." stated Cain as General Leong smiled again.

"Correct, it hasn't been 4 months it's been over 4 years for us." stated General Leong as she looked at her Colonial counterpoints, she could tell that the General didn't believe her but Cain had fear in her eyes. "We have had 4 years to build ships, tanks, aircraft and the other tools of war. We have had four years to train soldiers, marines and airmen to fight you and most of all four years to better integrate our new technology and the militaries of our worlds. Now we are ready to end this war once and for all."

"You will never defeat us, our military is still too vast for you to deal with in a fair and honorable fight." Stated the Colonial Army general as General Leong rolled her eyes like a teacher who had just been asked a very stupid question and couldn't keep a straight face.

"If you meet an enemy in a fair fight, you have failed as a General." Stated General Leong "Maybe honor is all you care about, what I care about is winning. I have studied the art of war, worked to perfect it and believe me you are children compared to what war is like on this scale."

"You dare insult us!" yelled the General "Wait until our counter attack and we will be the one demanding your surrender."

"We shall see." Said General Leong as the hologram disappeared.

"When do we launch our counter attack?" inquired Cain as she tried to push what General Leong had said out of her mind.

"Dawn, we are mobilizing and I finally got through to Lezha Armored Camp." stated the General "My counterpart there has already mobilized every tank he has and is preparing to move out at sunrise to retake every inch of land they have taken from us."

Cain nodded her head, she had visited Lezha Armored Camp only the other day saw hundreds of Pallas tanks lined up in rows and columns under the hot sun with men and women in uniforms standing beside their war machines. There was also a massive tank plant in the city with whole transport yards full of tanks, APCs and armored vehicles which would be normally shipped out across the planet. Now that entire force would be unleashed on the Tau'ri. There was also a nearby infantry base so they would join the fight.

"Air support?" inquired Cain

"Hard to come by the Tau'ri are great in the air but they don't have the men on the ground to challenge us once we get settled in." stated the General as Cain glared at him for not answering her question. "We have a large number of Vipers ready to go airborne from nearby bases, they will provide air cover and with Raptors armed with anti-armor cannons will punch through whatever armor they will find."

"Good." Stated Cain as she looked at the wall clock. "Dawn is still 5 hours away, will we be ready?"

"Far more ready than the Tau'ri." Reassured the General

**Only a couple dozens of miles away at one of the seven landing zones set up by the Tau'ri soldiers, vehicles and armor.** It was a massive undertaking but one that the soldiers had trained for and had done multiple dry runs. All the time they took practicing and preparing for this night was showing through as they unloaded ships and moved everyone into position as if they were back on Valhalla and not in a war zone. Tau'ri aircover was keeping every attempt by Colonial air power from getting near to the landing zones and Colonial artery which was capable of reaching the zones had been knocked out before the landings had even begun. As each unite was unload its statues was broadcasted live back to the Commanders gathered on the Missouri.

The Generals and Admiral in command of the single largest operation in the history of the Tau'ri had gathered together in a manner of speaking. For safety reason, so that the whole high command couldn't be taken down with something happening to the Missouri, 7 of the 15 officials gathered in the room where communicating by live hologram similar to what General Leong had used herself to inform the Colonials about the state they were in.

"Generals, Admirals." Greeted General Leong as she looked at her fellow officers, she had Generals from 10 different national militaries and admirals from 5 more. She had people under her command who only four years ago where on an entirely different planet in the form of Langara and others under her command had been trained originally to fight each other now they fought together. "We are here to discuss the current state of our offensive operations on Tauron."

"The take of Hypatia is going as expected, the colonial military has all but been pushed out of the city we expect total control over the city by dawn." Reported the Canadian General as General Leong nodded her head in agreement.

"The landing is going very well, better then we even expected." Added a French general

"When can we release our Eagle's and other aircraft to start going after colonial air support." Stated an American Air Force General "Our pilots want to start hunting instead of defending the landing none stop."

"We should free the fighter force to protect the bombers before our attack on Lezbha." Stated General Leong as she tapped a command into the small computer pad which was built into the command table. All eyes where on the holographic table as a 3d image of the map of the area of primary operation appeared. Away from Hypatia where the Stargate was being used to bring more forces where the 7 landing zones where the bulk of the Tau'ri forces where coming in. The 7 landing zones where spread out across the flat plans of Tauron but one city sat in the middle of the landing area, the city of Lezhba. General Leong glared at the city, it was going to be the hardest battle of the invasion. It was a small city compared to Hypatia but it was still had 800,000 residents with the largest tank and armored vehicle plant on Tauron with a nearby training center and infantry base nearby.

"We will not catch the Colonials unaware here." Stated General Leong as she and everyone else studied the map. The city also had multiple artillery platforms spaced out across the city some in residential areas. These defenses dated back to the Cylon war, had been turned into parks after the war only to be reactivated. On top of that the Colonials had dug a series of trenches and had placed multiple fixed defensive around the city. The defenses where old and dated by Tau'ri standards looking like they belonged in WW1 but there was a lot of them and they were layered. "This will be a major fight, but to link our landing zones we must have this city. We can't advance out like we plan too with this city untaken in our rear."

"Our forces are already heading toward their jump off points, we will hit them right before dawn." Stated a Russian general "It will be hard but we will take this city."

"We are limiting movement of troops and vehicles on the roadways slow down their own placement of troops." Reported another air force general this one from France. "The Colonials are making it easy for us, they are using police escort and their flashing lights stand out."

"Be careful in time they will learn not to do that and they will lure our pilots into a trap." Advised General Leong as the General nodded his head in agreement.

"Don't they have attack helicopters of their own? They must also have ground attack aircraft why would they be caught so unprepared?" inquired a British Admiral

"Simple they don't use missiles that often, their version of an attack helicopter is a modified raptor which carries two large cannons and cannon shells are never as effective as a missile and the Cylons where actually capable of hacking guided missiles midflight." Explained the French general to his space focused counterpart. "And secondly their enemy where Cylons who fought like they did, they don't expect strikes deep behind the lines if you where out range of the guns you are safe."

"If you fail to adapt, you die." stated General Leong as she turned to the British Admiral. "Is our plan for the colonial navy counter attack in place?"

"Yes General." Confirmed the Admiral.

"Good, we can expect them to follow the war plans they drew up for a Cylon attack even so I want all unarmed transports away before they arrive." Ordered General Leong an aid moved forward and handed a computer pad to her. She scanned the document and almost smiled at the news.

**Down in Hypatia in front of the statue of Ares in the heart of the city a large group of men and women knelt before a holy man.** They had their heads bowed in prayer as the priest blessed them before the eyes of the Lord of War. It was a strange mix of people, civilians of all different classes and social standings from the homeless to the millionaire knelt together. Police officers knelt beside the career criminal, men with women and even a handful of children all knelt before the priest. There were soldiers of course with their issues weapons in their olive-green uniforms with body armor, others where armed with civilian guns and even nothing at all. Also kneeling before the priest where members of the temple of Ares guards, these men and women where dressed in bronze armor with crested helmets, each one of them had a large bronze shield which had been blessed along with short swords and spears with bronze tips.

Standing behind the group broadcasting the ceremony was a news crew, they could see the Tau'ri flag flying over the Hills of Heroes before them and behind them they could see that same flag now flying over the bridge.

"We will march forward with you Lord Ares and our enemies will be flatten before your unstoppable power." Preached the priest "They will break upon our shields like waves upon rocks, they will never break us they will…."

He stopped as the sound of a cannon blast made him and everyone else turn toward one of the side roads. It came around the corner, the profile of it was different then it's colonial counterpart but it was clearly a tank, along with that tank came two more and a pair of APCs and foot soldiers.

"There is the enemy! Lord Ares is with us, before his eyes we can't fail!" yelled the priest

"Ares is with us!" yelled the people as they turned to face the Tau'ri on mass. The holy temple guards pushed forward and formed two lines across the road, behind them stood the soldiers, police and civilians who had come to the temple. In all almost a hundred and fifty people where now standing before the three Tau'ri tanks, the two APCs and the foot soldiers.

"Lay down your weapons and surrender." Came a voice from a load speaker attach to the tank.

The response came when multiple bullets began to bounce off the tank as the soldiers took cover.

"Move forward!" yelled the Priest as the temple guards raised their shields and began marching forward with their spears out and pointed toward the Tank. As one they moved forward in a phalanx with the civilians behand them firing their weapons over their heads and throwing rocks at the tanks.

The Tau'ri couldn't believe what they were seeing, men, women and even children where marching toward their tanks behind what looked to be a line of historical reenactors in bronze armor with spears out. They were firing weapons at the Tau'ri and pushing forward toward the tanks, they knew if they didn't fire back they would surround the tanks and possible put an explosive charge on it or force open a hatch. They couldn't stand still and they couldn't pull back.

"Sir, what are your orders!" inquired the gunner to the Tank commander.

"Lay down your weapons and surrender, if you come closer we will open fire this is your last warning!" yelled the commander into the speaker system, even as the Colonial mob kept moving forward and bullets and rocks bounced off the armor.

"Sir?" inquired the gunner, for a moment the commander froze looking at the crowed. His eyes locked on a little boy not much older than his own nephews on Earth. Then the little boy raised and fired a pistol at the tank.

"Canister round." Ordered the commander as everyone inside the tank eyes widened at the order. "Wait for my order."

"But sir, there are children there!" countered the driver "Do we have any stun rounds?"

"No we don't and those children are shooting at us." Countered the commander as 50 caliber rifle rounds bounced off the sides of the tank as he prayed for the crowd to stop before it was too late and for God to forgive him if they didn't.

A few yards behind the advancing men and women by the statue of Ares with his spear held high in victory, stood a news crew. They filmed it all as the holy men and women and those true believers advanced on the Tau'ri tanks. They heard the final warning but kept moving then came a deafening roar as all three tanks fired their main cannons at the same time into the crowd.

What came out of the barrel was not a normal round, it contained no high explosive charge instead it was a canister round. On a basic level, it turned the tank into a giant shotgun, inside each round was hundreds of small ball baring's which spread apart like birdshot when fired. The thousands of little tinny metal balls ripped through flesh, broke bone and caused a scene straight out of a horror move. People where turned into red smears of blood and bones, limbs where torn apart and in the end nothing remained of the crowd but a mass of dead flesh and blood which covered the ground. The small ball barring rounds had flown everywhere in front of the tank, taking out street signs and mail boxes.

The worse hit was the statue of Ares, his head was cut in half and one of his arms was gone. His base was full of pop marks and the tip of his spear had been blown off but his hand was still raised high and the staff was there. The film crew was lucky, they had been far enough away to avoid getting hit. They ran back toward their studio located behind the statue, as they did they filmed the Tau'ri moving forward past the blood bath toward the statue of Ares the tank treads crushing any bits of flesh and bones that got in their way. For a moment they stopped and looked at the broken remains of the statue, then one of the foot soldiers ran toward an APC and got something. The news crew filmed the whole thing as the man started climbing up the statue to the Lord of War, they watched as he reached the shoulder and then climbed up the staff of the spear, when he reached as far as he could go and hanging onto it with one arm he attached a long pole of his own. Another solider tossed up a small bag and there before the eyes of the film crew which was still broadcasting out to the colonies, the Tau'ri flag was flying over the Ares, the Lord of War and Protector of Tauron in the heart of the Capital of Tauron.

**Well I hope you liked this chapter and the battle between the Tau'ri and the Colonials. Now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	69. Chapter 69

**Chapter 69 Come into the Web**

The images coming off the Tauron was scary and filling the colonial public with anger and fear, they had watched live as icons of the might of their worlds began to fall. First it was the Hill of Heroes, then it was when their fleet was destroyed live on TV and now the latest event was brutal deaths before the statue of Ares in the heart of Hypatia. Then the raising of the Tau'ri flag over that same statue, the colonial public was fearful, they were confused and they were angry.

All over the 12 colonies the world was going out about how the Colonial military had been caught unaware but was as they were speaking getting back on their feet and soon counter attacks would drive the Tau'ri back. Small victories like Colonial forces holding a block in Hypatia from a Tau'ri attack was held up as examples, only the media failed to mention that those victories where made pointless when the Tau'ri outflanked the defenders or another attack forced them back. Across every news station word was going out, mobilize and we shall win, have faith and will shall win, stand together and we shall win.

While anger was growing to an all-time high, fear was also forcing some people to give up hope a handful of people where now saying that maybe it was time to surrender. Those voices where drowned out on every world on the colonies aside from Libra who was the only colony which was more included to be acuminating to the Tau'ri demands, as it happened Libra was where the President of the 12 colonies Richard Adar was currently on.

An emergency war council was taking place on Libra as President Adar along with the most senior members of the military that were available on Libra and the surrounding system which included the shipyards at Scorpia, the religious leaders at Sagittaron and high ranking government officials. The meeting was taking place inside a command and control bunker on Scorpia.

"How could this happen?" inquired President Adar

"We aren't sure, somehow the Tau'ri managed to build a massive fleet and are currently carrying out an invasion of Tauron." stated a Marine General

"Something that is doomed to fail, with the amount of forces we have built up on Tauron there is no way they can be defeated." Stated a member of the Qurom from Sagittaron "The people of Tauron are known for stubbornness and their will to fight."

"They aren't doing so good right now." Stated a Qurom member from Libra as she looked at the wall of TVs which was showing the news reports. The Tau'ri flag was now flying not only over the hill of Heroes and the bridge but now over the statue of Ares and at every turn a fresh Tau'ri victory was being shown. Libra being the only colony in which a majority of the population even if by a narrow number was against the war. "Hypatia has fallen."

"Ares will strike back at those who dare strike at him." Stated Priest Spiro who had journey from Sagittaron for this meeting as he sat beside his brother Vice President Spiro. "We only have to hold on until his and the other will of the Lord of Kobol has been done."

"With all due respect your holiness but Ares isn't coming to our aid right now." added an army General "We have lost Hypatia our entire forces are pulling back, we have had no contact with our nearest fort outside of Hypatia. We will have to launch any attack from Lezbha but that may help us, more armored there."

"Another thing helping is that the Tau'ri seems to have failed in a landing attempt between Lezbha and Hypatia." Added a marine general "They have landed only small groups that are all spread out and unable to support each other. The only benefit for the Tau'ri seems to be that it is slowing down movements due to hit and run attacks."

"Finally, some good news." said President Adar "What about our navy forces?"

"Mr. President with the amount of damage done to our forces over Tauron we are pulling in ships form everywhere and we plan to launch a counter attack timed with our forces on the ground." Explained Admiral Nagata "I will actually be leaving with the Battlestar Bellerophon to take command of the counter attack myself."

"Very good, the sight of a Hercles class battlestars will give our people hope." Said Vice President Spiro

"But didn't we just see two of the Hercles class battlestars get destroyed by the Tau'ri with single hits?" countered one of the few members of the cabinet at the meeting, Sectary of Education Laura Roslin. "How would one ship make a difference when two other matching ships where destroyed with ease."

"You have a point." admitted Admiral Nagata "But before we were following the standard counter attack plan for an attack on one of our worlds using ships already in orbit, here we will be using a modified counter attack plan this time. Our goal will not be destroy those ships in orbit."

"What do you mean?" inquired President Adar "You aren't going to destroy their ships?"

"No, not at first. I will use part of the fleet to lure them away from Tauron and then jump in behind them." stated Nagata "We need to destroy the people on the ground and an orbital bombardment will help do that. When we do that their ships in orbit will have no real reason to remain and the destruction of their forces on the ground will force them to the table."

"To accept our reasonable terms and give us back Kobol." stated a member of the Qurom

"Why stop there, when we beat them we could force them to rejoin us." Countered Priest Spiro

"Let's focus on liberating Tauron and getting back Kobol." stated President Adar "Have we heard from Cain?"

"Yes, but the report must be scrambled in some way." said an intelligence office "It said that a Tau'ri appeared in front of them, talked to them and told them they could slow down time and that is why their forces are so much larger then we estimated."

"Is that possible?" inquired Sectary Roslin

"The Tau'ri are capable of a lot of things but slowing down time? That is too farfetched." Stated the intelligence officer "And if an image of a Tau'ri appeared before them, why not kill them. They were in the command bunker any military planner worth anything would have killed them. This message has to be scrambled in some way."

"The Tau'ri are sitting between us and Tauron, we can't fully trust the information coming from that world." stated the Marine General

"The how can we arrange our counter attack?" inquired Adar

"Dawn is the best time to launch an attack and every officer worth their rank knows that." Stated the Army General

"General." Said President Adar "What happens if our counter attack fails?"

"Mr. President." started the Army General as he paused for a moment to think. "If our counter attack fails then we will have to deal with it but we are looking at possible the largest armored force in our history, we are talking over 300 tanks."

"Amazing." Said the Marine General "No force short of a nuke can stand against that kind of fire power on the ground and that brings us to our next major issue the use of nuclear weapons."

"Outside of space no nukes no matter what, the Tau'ri made that clear if we use nukes then they will respond in kind and even destroying their invasion force on our own world is worth the destruction of our cities." ordered the President

"I agree Mr. President." confirmed Vice President Spiro "We would only really be nuking ourselves and that gains us nothing but correct me if I am wrong but Hades fire is ok to use under our agreement with our wayward cousins."

"It is and we plan to use it to wall off our flanks as we advance." stated the General "It is hard but it is very due able and unless the Tau'ri have truckloads of sands it will prevent them from making any moves around our advance."

"Good." Said President Adar as he looked at the clock. "Admiral Nagata good luck and may the Lords of Kobol go with you, the hope of every man and women in the colonies goes with you."

"Thank you Mr. President, I will not fail." stated Admiral Nagata as she stood up and headed out the door to the waiting Raptor that would take her to the command ship, the Hercles class battlestar, the Bellerophon. The moment the Admiral was onboard the Bellerophon jumped away in a flash of light followed by the rest of the battlestars, cruisers, destroyers and other ships that where being shifted to retake the space around Tauron.

"Radio command, the Colonials are moving their fleet." said the cloaked Tau'ri Owl as it hovered just within the system. The modified Owl, had room only for the two pilots and a third intelligence officer located in a small jump seat behind the two pilots. The rest of the bay where troops or supplies would normally be carried was packed with long range sensors and other intelligence gathering tools.

"They are moving just as we expected them too and almost right on our estimated time line." Stated the intelligence officer as she sent out the message to the Tau'ri command over the radio. In truth it wasn't a radio, not in the old way that was used on earth and even on the battlefield where distance wasn't a huge problem. Instead a modified version of the faster then light communication system used by the Asgard was used but old habits died hard and people tended to call them radios.

**Messages about movement of Colonials fleets where reported by multiple Owls which were stationed in every colonial system and all that data was instantly feed to the command center in the heart of the battleship Missouri. **There real time data showing the movement of the colonial fleet was being monitored by the Tau'ri commanders, they knew the location of every colonial warship and for the matter civilian ship in all four-star systems and had owls tailing the larger convoys which were traveling between the systems.

"They are moving everything as we expected them too." reported a young Captain to the British Admiral in charge of the fleets.

"Well that is what happens when you follow a combat plan written down almost 40 years ago to fight the Cylons." stated the British Admiral, he had read the entire colonial counter attack plan for a planetary attack. Written just after the Cylon war it had been updated a handful of time over the 40 years span of time but it hadn't been updated much. "Alright, move the Akula and her task force into position, I want her and the other forces ready to go once we draw the Colonials in."

"Yes, sir and everything is ready for their arrival." reported the Captain "The Owls placed the lasts ones 20 minutes ago and we can turn them on when they arrive."

"Good, judging from their current position and the general timeline outlined in their battle plan we should expect them within the next two to three hours." stated the Admiral

"I almost wish they would hurry up so we can move on to the next phase of the operation." Stated the Captain.

"So, do I." admitted the Admiral "But we must show patience and wait, we are in a great defensive spot and they have to come to us. If we attack them now their fleet will break apart and scatter to the 4 winds and we will have to spend a lot more time hunting them down. So we shall wait."

Across the hall from where the admirals and those in command of the ships where monitoring the movement of the colonial navy was a matching room where those in command of the ground movement was monitoring the movement of the colonial ground forces. Here General Leong was in her element and she liked what she was looking at. From above the Tau'ri landing was spread out in the shape of a fish hook or a letter J. They ran from Hypatia and the hill of hero's up and around past the city of Lezbha which would be their main objective starting at sun rise before hooking around to where one of three small seas were located. In a sense they had Lezbha surrounded with colonial forces which had pulled out of Hypatia to the North trapped in a pocket. The next steps was to take Lezbha and close the pocket.

"I want the Americans to keep driving across the bridge and link up with their marine force and take Hypatia military base." Ordered General Loeng as she ran her finger across the surface of the table, since the table was also a holographic map it showed the orders she was giving to all the officers in the room. "The Spanish armor which is in reserve for the Americans will head North and take the tunnel and if possible break through into the pocket. The Armor from Lanagar will drive south and take the other tunnel out of Hypatia."

All the generals and officers nodded their head, that was already part of the plan before they had begun the operation.

"All forces are nearing their jump off points and we are monitoring the movement of colonial forces inside of Lezbha." Stated another General "They are currently mobilizing their armor, we estimate that they will have just under 350 Pallas tanks ready for combat at dawn with a large amount of support vehicles."

"Their line of attack is predictable and their most likely route will be across the flat plans here." reported a German general "It is flat and perfect tank country however the distance our forces will have to cover is 25 miles, I recommend we wait until the colonials are about half way across the field and then launch our attack. We will use the smoke and burning remains of their forces to mask the movement of our forces from their forward artillery observer."

"Good, I like it." stated General Leong "And when you open fire we will begin long range bombardment of the city and we will focus on those guns to keep them off you. Air support will hit them as well."

"By then the Colonials will have finished their evacuation of civilians." stated a Brazilian General as he pulled up a map which showed the colonial artillery positions within the city of Lezbha, they had been there since the Cylon war and hadn't been moved. Over the course of 40 years homes had grown around them to the point that some of them where right next to the raised earth works. One of the largest artillery points which included three monster railroad guns was flanked on either side by first an elementary school and then a high school. In peace time the childern would play on the earth works and the pre-prepared gun locations. The guns themselves hadn't been in place at the time but had instead been moved into position when the war started.

"Let them evacuate the civilians, it will make everyone jobs down there a lot easier," confirmed General Leong as an aid walked up.

"General." said the aid as she snapped to attention. "I have the updated casualty list."

"I see." said General Leong as she took the computer pad and looked at the top number, she didn't want to look at the names themselves. She shook her head, her numbers where off slightly but it the wrong way. "Gentlemen, Ladies we have lost 1,238 brave men and women so far and with more forces on the ground and the colonials now aware of our forces we should expect that number to go up. It is our duty to make sure it doesn't."

**Down in Hypatia a group of American soldiers dressed in full battle armor stood outside the closed towering bronze door which sealed off the main entrees to the temple of Ares. **Inside the priest and priestess whose job it was to protect the main temple of one of the most important Lords of Kobol had refused to open the door.

"Well we have tried nice." said a sergeant to the Lieutenant in command of his squad

"Alright, time to knock it down." ordered the Lieutenant as he looked up at the bronze doors, they were very beautiful with inlays of what had to be Ares dressed in full Greek battle armor with a spear raised in victory and his shield in the other hand. While the lieutenant looked at the door, a member of his squad fixed breaching charges on the two lower hinges and in the center. They all stepped back and with a rush of air the charges went off. They weren't enough to knock the doors down but it did break the lock and its hinges. Using their power armor, they could force the door opened only to be greeted by a priest in full robes holding a large staff with a miniature of Ares on top. Behind him where temple guards dressed in the same Greek style armor.

"You shall not Pass!" yelled the Priest as the four temple guards drew their swords and raised their shields.

"Anyone see a Balrog?" inquired a member of the Tau'ri squad with a laugh.

"This Temple of the Lord of Kobol, Lord of War and Protector of Tauron Ares! He will not allow you to pass into this holy shrine!" yelled the Priest

"Listen I have a tank outside and I would be more than happy to blow you and this whole temple into nothing but rubble but I know you have wounded in here, you have civilians there is no reason for this to go badly." stated the Lieutenant as he cradled his rifle even as the rest of his squad aimed their weapons. "We have no intention of harming them now stand down."

"No, we are the childern of…" started the priest only to get shot with a bolt of energy as the lieutenant pulled a stun pistol out of his holster beside his normal side arm. Seeing their priest attack caused the sword wielding guards to rush forward, they didn't get more than a step before getting blown away.

"If only the tanks carried stun rounds it would have saved us a lot of mess outside." stated the sergeant as they stepped over the dead and stunned bodies of the priest and the guards.

"Well, this is a war zone and carrying stun rounds is optional and a tank can only carry so many shells." stated the Lieutenant as one of his privates grabbed the bronze sword as a trophy. "Wait to take the sword until they we evacuated the people from here, we can't be seen to be looting from here."

They moved into the heart of the temple pushing open some more less ornate wooden doors to enter the main part of the temple. Another statue of Ares dominated the far wall which was bathed in light both artificial and from multiple red candles which burned around the base. People both civilians and military, wounded and perfectly healthy all looked at the squad with fear in their eyes.

"Listen up!" yelled the Lieutenant "We aren't going to hurt you, if you follow direction then nothing will happen. For the moment, you all will be safer here until the city is fully secured."

"We will never surrender to you!" yelled a man in a dirty business suit.

"I don't really think you have much of a choice." Stated the Lieutenant "Now I will radio for some food and some medical supplies. I believe the civilians will be moved to the local hospital as for military personal you are now POWs and you will come with us if you can."

There was no real fight, outside of a few verbal attacks all the fight had gone out of the colonials as the Tau'ri rounded up the soldiers. Most of them had wounds of some kind ranging from near death to broken bones. Those who were near death where taken first toward waiting trucks while those who could walked.

Outside news crews which had been all but ignored by the Tau'ri soldiers who had cleared the building was still able to broadcast out. They had no idea why they could do so but they soon found out way, as large groups of Colonial soldiers all of them disarmed and dirty began to march past their building. It was a sad display of colonial strength as soldiers who only hours earlier marched past in a celebrating of Colonial might was marching past the same spots with their heads down flanked by Tau'ri guards. That image was being broadcasted out across the colonies.

**Unaware of the situation back in Hypatia a convoy of Hypatia city buses moved down the road as fast as they could. **The buses where full of soldiers and all of them were heading toward Lezbha among them where two scared fresh out of boot camp girls. Acacia and Medea had been planning a night on the town partying it up like any 19 years old would, they had even packed their party cloths into their bags normally reserved for weapons. Now they were on a bus heading to Lezbha, the Tau'ri had attacked they had seen the Tau'ri flag flying over the bridge as they exited the tunnel leaving Hypatia behind them.

"Are you alright?" reassured Medea to her best friend since childhood.

"No, no one is." countered Acacia "We will be in combat soon and it isn't on Kobol it is here and now. We aren't ready."

"No one is." stated a calming voice of a nearby officer "Everyone is scared remember that and remember of all your training and put trust in everyone around you in a colonial uniform. We will beat these Tau'ri and besides now we are safe, the Tau'ri are back in Hypatia and we are outside of the combat zone. Get some sleep, you will need it."

"Yes sir." confirmed Acacia as she leaned back in the bus chair unaware that above their heads where a pair of Tau'ri fighter bombers.

"I have a convoy of buses on the road to our 3 a clock low." reported one of the pilots. "Requesting permission to carry out attack run."

"Negative, we cannot confirm those buses hold military or civilians." reported the flight leader as his radar system picked up something much more worth their time.

"Rocket fire to the North East." reported the flight leader as he punched the engines and made the turn toward the target area. With the powerful engines, the flight arrived just as a group of four colonial Toxotai missile launchers. The Toxotai missile launcher was the odd vehicle out in the colonial military, it had some speed. Maybe it was because the vehicle was nothing more than a large flatbed truck with tubes on the back which could be raised up by hydraulics or even by a hand pump to fire the unguided rockets contained within those tubes. They were almost identical to the soviet Katyusha rockets from WW2. The trucks where moving already having fired their weapons and where moving before any Tau'ri return fire could come in from the hill of heroes. What those Colonials didn't expect was that two Tau'ri bombers where already there.

"I got a lock, firing!" yelled the second pilot in the flight as a missile flew off the rail and hit the first Toxotai. The led Taita followed suit and destroyed another one with missile fire and stopped another one with cannon shells from its nose mounted gun. The two plans spun around to make another pass on the single remaining Toxotai. Here they used cannon shells to turn it into nothing but twisted burning metal.

**The colonials where beginning to fight back or at least prepare to fight back, Ares' Spears where among the best of the best soldiers in the 12 colonies of Kobol. **They had decided to use a forward artillery firebase outside of Lezbha to prepare for their operation against the Tau'ri invasion. The firebase was in the standard lay out with 12 field guns located in prepared ground work with raised dirt walls. Around them where machine guns and barbwire, 40 years ago when the base was raised to help defend Lezbha it would have provided quick reaction fire for troops nearby while the larger guns deeper behind the lines would be used against harder targets. When the base was raised the area around it was nothing more than farm fields with maybe a farm house a couple of miles down the road, now urban growth had spread out and the area around the firebase had become a small housing development with multiple civilian homes and nearby shops. Before the Tau'ri war the firebase was basically used as a park and the guns inside had been disarmed and was only used as a reminder. Now the guns where real along with the threat.

"Wow…look at them." said a private manning one of the field guns as he looked at the Ares' Spears prepare for battle. Unlike other colonial units they had their own special uniforms, weapons and tools that most units never saw. They wore a full body uniform which included a covering for the lower part of their faces. It was the same olive green color as everyone's else but what made it special was it was lined with counter thermal layers which made them all but invisible on infrared. Since Clyons relied on infrared to find their target this made them all but invisible. Their helmets included a visor which covered their eyes and while not as effective as the covering it did limit their heat signature. Their weapons where personized versions of the standard weapons used by the infantry. "I wish I was one of them."

"They are the best of the best." stated another one of the gunners as they stood by their gun watching the group of 24 Ares spears getting ready. "Imagine the rush of being deep behind enemy lines working to bring down the enemy."

"Yes, deep behind lines outside the range of artery and support, living on the edge and being a hero." Stated the 1st artillery man "Imagine being that far behind the lines, going up to 50 miles behind the lines."

As the Colonial artillery men watched the best of the best of the Colonial army get ready for battle, a pair of Tau'ri snipers lied on top of a nearby office building. He looked through the scope of his rifle and scanned the soon to be battlefield, the office building itself was only four stories tall and was your standard looking office building, it wouldn't have looked out of place anywhere on Earth. The height of the building gave the snipers a view over the residential homes and stores and into the firebase.

"Who are those guys?" inquired one of the spotter as he zoomed in on the group of men, unlike other unites, snipers didn't wear the full power armor because of the extra bulk that made it harder to hide. They did however contain a helmet with a much more advanced zoom system. "The patch on their arms say Ares' Spears."

"Must be a special force of some kind." stated the sniper as he zoomed in on the commander of the group. "Well the show is about to start."

A convoy of three colonial trucks headed toward the firebase, the trucks had cloth canopies over their backs hiding what was really inside them. Inside them was not the reinforcements that the firebase expected but instead squads of paratroopers from the 101st airborne. Their mission was to take this firebase and knock out the guns. To do this they had stolen three colonial trucks and where using them as Trojan horses to get them near the base.

"Be warned, we just got word of special forces on the target." reported Lefeld to his men and women who were in the truck with him.

"20 seconds." Said the driver of the truck who was dressed in a dead man's uniform. The entrees to the base was protected by a handful of solders with a simple sliding gate with a machine gun in a nest above it. The truck came to a stop as one of the colonial soldiers guarding the gate moved forward to talk to the driver of the 1st truck. He was at the door to the truck when the sniper fired at the machine gunner blowing his head off in a burst of red. Before the solider at the truck door could even turn around to see what had happened to the machine gunner he had a pistol in his face. With a pull of the trigger, he too was off to see which religion if any was really correct. That was the signal as the 101st airborne troopers jumped off the back of the trucks and moved toward the gate taking down the stunned soldiers on guard duty.

The sound of gunfire caused the entire firebase to stop and look around in confusion for a moment, then with a crash the chain link fence which formed the barrier around the main gate came crashing in as a truck slammed into it. Out of that opening came dozens of Tau'ri soldiers firing their guns at the surprised colonials.

"How did they get so close!" yelled one of the soldiers as he worked the bolt action rifle. The 50 calibers round that it sent down range would have done damage to any Cylon centurion that it hit and it did the same to the Tau'ri. The young solider was reward when he saw one of the Tau'ri he was aiming at go down without a head. "I got one!"

He never anything more again as a four-round burst ended his life just as fast as his single round had done.

The 101st airborne with the element of surprise on their side moved forward with ease against the mostly artillery men however when they reached the part of the firebase with the Ares spears the fight got tougher. Both sides began to be bogged down, the paratroopers unable to advance toward the final two guns and the much larger force of colonials was unable to move forward thanks to the Tau'ri fire and the sniper shooting at them.

"Sir, we need to take those guns!" yelled a sergeant as he and Lefeld took cover behind one of the guns they had captured.

"No…" countered Lefeld as he reached for a round for his grenade launcher. "We only need to destroy them."

"Understood sir." confirmed the sergeant as he fired a burst from his rifle to keep the colonial heads down. This allowed Lefeld to take careful aim with his launcher and pulled the trigger. The grenade fired out of the tube located under the barrel of his rifle, when it crashed into the colonial field gun it exploded causing a nearby shell to go up as well. The combination of the smaller charge and the larger charge caused the entire gun to go up in a fireball. "One down, one to go."

"yes." confirmed Lefeld as they repeated the process, this time the gun wasn't destroyed and no shells went off in a secondary exposition. The gun was knocked over and judging from what they could see the barrel had been bent making it useless.

"We got it, destroy the others and fall back." ordered Lefeld as his men began to destroy the other guns. They did this multiple ways, mostly dropping white phosphorus grenades down the barrels. The extreme heat from the grenade melted the breaches and destroyed the barrels. With their work done the paratroopers began to pull back.

Seeing the Tau'ri pulling back filled the Colonials with hope as they pushed forward to reclaim their base. As they pushed forward they fell in mass even as the Tau'ri did what is called a leap frog tactic where one group would fall back take up new position and cover the next group as they fell back beyond the 1st group. The Tau'ri did this all the way back to the main gate before using explosive charges to blow up the trucks they came in to make a smoke screen did they disappear into the fading night.

"We did it! Look at them run!" yelled a colonial soldier as he and the other survivors of the attack cheered at their "victory" in what was now a worthless piece of earthworks with no working guns and what had become a none factor in the upcoming fight for Lizbha.

**Over Caprica the counter attack plan that the colonial navy had developed was only two hours away from being launched as all the commanders gathered together onboard the Battlestar Bellerophon. **

"Listen up." Stated Admiral Nagata as she stood before all the highest-ranking officers in the massive fleet gathered over Caprica. "I am splitting the fleet into three forces, the 1st force will be under my command and we will jump over Tauron but outside the known range of Tau'ri weapons."

"Sir we will be out of range for our guns, shouldn't we jump close and destroy them?" stated a Commander

"Then we fall victim to their more advanced weapon and their beaming technology and ramming them took too many ships to do any damage and it will take too long to empty out our battlestars, time we don't have." countered Nagata "Our weapons will be less effective but that isn't our goal, our goal is to lure the Tau'ri fleet away from Tauron so that our second force can jump in behind them and fire down on the forces down below. We must support our forces on the ground, now Admiral Adama you will command the second force and behind me you are in command of the fleet."

"Very well." said Admiral Adama

"Now the third force which will be the smallest force will stay behind to protect Caprica and Gememon." Stated Admiral Nagata as she went forward and explained the main targets both on the ground and in the Tau'ri fleet. When they were nearing the end of the briefing Adama spoke up.

"Admiral, I feel that I must ask you a question." stated Adama as the higher-ranking officer lifted her head away from the map table and looked at her senior in age subordinate. "What are our chances? And if this should go wrong what is our fall back plan?"

"This plan has a good chance of working, we will pull the Tau'ri away and destroy their forces on the ground with nothing to support on the ground they have no reason to stay and if they do we can fire missiles from the ground until they do leave." started Nagata "Also if the worse should happen then we will reform and attempt a new plan. This is Tauron it will never fall and the Tau'ri will soon learn the fraking nest of trouble they just walked into."

**Only a couple of miles away from the fire fight between the 101****st**** and the Colonials, right in the middle of that firebase artery range a column of Tau'ri armor came to a stop. **They had to stop, they had to get resupplied and refueled both of which was much easier given the technology they had now it still took time. While teams of soldiers worked to replace the used shells and that the naquadah fuel rods which was used to power the vehicles where replaced the officers core gathered together in small groups to go over the upcoming action. This also allowed soldiers who had been fighting through the night a moment to rest and get something to eat and maybe even get some sleep. They were only 40 miles away from the outskirts of Lezbha and the Colonial defenses.

"We can expect a lot more armor at dawn and most of all colonial artillery will be heavy." Stated Jager to the tank commanders under his direct command. "We will have massive support from our own artillery as well as air support, we may even get fire from our ships in orbit depending on the movement of the colonial navy."

"How many tanks are we likely going to deal with?" inquired another commander

"Since we sitting in the direct line of attack to take Hypatia we can expect the bulk of the estimated 350 tanks plus other vehicles to head right at us." stated Jager as he looked at the map. "We are luckily on our attack route there is a small rise which slit the flat lands almost half way between where we are and the colonials are."

"Will we be in range with our main guns once we take that rise?" inquired a 3rd commander "We have the Lions now? With their guns we can hit something 15 miles away."

"Sadly, the rise is 15 and a half miles out from the colonial lines but it will shield our approach." explained Jager as the other tank commanders nodded their heads in understand. They spent a few more minutes talking about the planned attack formation before the meeting broke apart and Jager returned to his command tank. As he walked he noticed that the men and women under his command while tense where also focused they knew what they had to do and he had faith that when dawn came they would do it.

**The sun was just beginning to rise over Lezbha as Captain Lee Adama sat in the same Phyrgian recon vehicle that had picked him up when he had bailed out of his doomed viper.** Now that Phyrgian was moving down a road which ran alongside the runway at the colonial base in Lezbha. Along the runway where multiple vipers and raptors all preparing for battle. Ground crew was preparing them, loading them up with weapons and attaching heavy cannons onto Raptors for ground attack. As he moved down the line he looked out to see training vipers being loaded up for combat that they were never supposed to be in. If that wasn't enough he noticed on the far side of the field where old pre cylon war and even pre-space flight vipers including some who used rear mounted propeller to fly.

"By the Lords of Kobol, is this all we have to throw at them?" inquired Lee

"No idea, but everything that can fly will be fighting at dawn." stated the driver of the Phyrgian as he moved toward an officer who was giving to an orders to a group of very young looking pilots. When the vehicle came to a stop Lee jumped out and moved toward the officer.

"Major." said Lee as he looked at the man.

"Who are you?" inquired the tired sounding man until he saw that both he and Lee shared a rank.

"Major Lee Adama, I was a flight leader on the Hercles until I got shot down and picked up by some of your soldiers." Explained Lee, the man smiled as he looked at Lee.

"Thank the Lords of Kobol that you are here." Said the Major. "Most of my veteran pilots where on leave and those who did make it back, some are too drunk to fly. I had to pull raw recruits straight out of flight school and some of the historical fliers who flew in formation over Hypatia for the parade. I can use someone who has flight and combat experience."

"Works for me, I need a Viper." stated Lee

"I have some." confirmed the Major "We need to kick one of the rookies down to a trainer but I will get you airborne."

"When do we launch our attack?" inquired Lee

"In 30 minutes." stated the Major as the horizon was beginning to glow as sunrise came ever closer.

**It had been a long and horrifying night and the coming dawn looked like it was going to be even worse for Private Acacia and Private Medea**. Their bus full of soldiers from Hypatia had arrived just before dawn and waiting for them where more trucks full of supplies needed for the soldiers, everything from uniforms to weapons waiting. Men and women where dressing in the middle of the bus station getting into uniform and putting on body armor.

"We are going to go straight into the line." complained Medea as she and Acacia loaded up their packs with everything they would need. "Straight into combat."

"Listen up!" yelled a voice as a man with command bars on his shoulders moved forward toward the group. "Since you all just arrived we are going to put you in a defensive position in the trench line, your mission is to hold Lezbha while our main force advances toward Hypatia and the hill of heroes. Now form up and I will lead you to your assigned post."

"I heard they have over 350 Pallas tanks where we are going plus everything that goes with them." said a solider they had ridden with from Hypatia. "It is going to be a cake walk for us."

"Thank the Lords of Kobol, an easy assignment. All that tanks have to be among the largest tank force in history. The Tau'ri don't stand a chance against that." stated Acacia with a huge smile. "All we have to do is stand guard and rest and maybe do some mop up work."

Less than 40 miles away the spearhead of the Tau'ri attack on Lazbha was coming to life as over 450 Leopard III main battle tanks, 250 Lion Heavy tanks, plus countless Puma recon vehicles, Cougar APCs, Tiger multiple rocket launchers and Jaguars mobile Artillery was coming to life as they began to roll toward their target. Across three sides of Lezbha including from the North where per Colonial intelligence no Tau'ri was at were all moving toward Lezbha.

**Onboard the Battleship Missouri General Leong along with other high ranking officers had returned to the bridge having finished directing the placement of forces for their dawn attack. **As they entered the bridge the Captain in command of the Missouri saluted to the wall of higher ranking brass before him.

"General, Ma'am we have confirmed intercepts that that Colonials will be launching their naval operation against us within the next 20 minutes." stated the Captain as General Leong nodded her head. "Everything is in place and now all we have do is wait."

**Well I hope you liked this chapter, the pieces are falling into place and next chapter is going to be fun. Until that time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	70. Chapter 70

**Chapter 70 Desperate Hour **

The sun was rising over the Lezbha as the roar of engines filled the air, all around the city where layers of defenses which had been preplanned since the end of the Cylon war and had been put into action at the start of the Tau'ri war. Around the city where three layers of trenches which where interconnected to each other allowing forces in one to quickly move to or from another line. Those routes where defended by heavy machine gun nets and preplaced anti-tank guns, mortars and field guns. Barbwire, large metal hedge hogs, dragon teeth, water filled trenches and land mines defenses like these had kept the Cylons out and from Colonial military planners point of view it would keep out almost everything. There were safe routes through the death traps but those paths zig zagged and those routes where all well marked by colonial guns which would make them killing grounds for anyone trying to go through them.

Rumbling through those paths where multiple Pallas tanks and other vehicles all heading toward battle. Marching beside them where the soldiers who would take part in the operation. When they got past the outer most physical defense they spread out across their planned attack route and began the long march forward. They were moving at their standard combat speed of 20 miles an hour as troops sat on top of tanks and armored vehicles ready to jump off and fight. They were spread out in 3 straight lines with the most tanks and APC in the front rank with less tanks more APCs and recon vehicles in the second line. The last line had only a handful of tanks and was heavy in support vehicles, and anti-air guns. A semi fourth line was forward of the 1st line but that was only a recon screen.

"Let's get those Gods less scum!" yelled someone as his voice joined with others as the solders joked and looked forward to the coming victory because there have never been so many tanks gathered together in a single assault in colonial history.

The only ones not happy was the tank commanders, they were used to working in groups no larger than 8 and generally worked in pairs if at that. They were having trouble keeping everything organized as they moved across the field. Some parts of the lines were advancing slower than others, the issue was made harder because since the tanks where not designed to operate together on this scale they had trouble communicating with each other over their wireless systems. Multiple tank and other vehicle crews where attempting to communicate on the same system so orders got confused. They were getting so confused that the commanders were forced to start using hand signs to communicate with their nearby comrades to help keep the wireless clear.

**Now only 30 miles away from them the Tau'ri tanks rushing toward deadly conflict with them had no such problem.** They had practiced on the fields of Valhalla for operations like this, they had an integrated command and control system, their soldiers where all mounted in Cougar APCs and Puma recon vehicles, none sat on top of tanks. In fact, a small force of five Pumas, two APCs and a single Leopard tank had raced forward and to serve as scouts in the upcoming attack. Their advance which was pushing 60 miles an hour was only slowed because the max speed of their heavy lion tank was 65 miles per hour compared to 77 for the Leopard and even faster for the Cougar APC and the Puma's could break a 100 mph. The flat open ground was perfect tank country with the only thing really standing out on the horizon being a small rise.

Standing up in the copula of his Leopard III tank was Colonel Jager as he looked around he could see only the tip of the spear of the entire tank force of 700 tanks plus according amount of APCs, Recon vehicles, rocket and gun artillery pieces were racing forward. He knew the plan when they got to the halfway point between their jump off point and the colonial defense line the Tiger mobile rockets and the Jaguar mobile field guns would fan out and with a small defending force staying behind they would wait for orders to fire on the colonial lines.

The main force was set up like a wedge with the center heavy in tanks, they would be the spear to break the colonial lines and drive into the city. This line of attack wasn't the only one similar sized attacking forces where going to hit Lezbha from three sides. The 4th side wasn't going to be hit until much later, a force of tanks spearhead by a Spanish armored division was driving North from Hypatia toward a small town which was best known as a crossroads where the highway coming out of Lezbha and heading east meet the highway coming North out of Hypatia. There they would make the turn and close the pocket of colonial forces trapped between the Tau'ri landing zones and the coast of the small ocean. Any colonial forces which tried to pull out of Lezbha would find themselves running into yet another Tau'ri force. Across the multiple battlefields over 3,000 Tau'ri tanks would be heading toward Lezbha but the most constrained force was here.

**Sunrise was fast approaching and the Colonial military was ready to launch its counter attack against the Tau'ri who had owned the night of Tauron.** They were ready to reclaim their homes and they were ready to get some revenge. It was going to be a very complex operation in both size and scope of the battle but the overall plan was straight forward. A massive column of Colonial armor with infantry and air support would drive from Lezbha and crush anything that got in their way. At the same moment the colonial navy would lure the Tau'ri fleet away from the planet so that a second group of ships could jump in and fire upon the planet. That was the colonial plan and that was the generally the basic attack plan that had been drawn up almost directly after the Cylon war, only thing was that plan was public knowledge and the Tau'ri knew it.

**Onboard the Battleship Missouri General Leong stood on the bridge with a cup of coffee in her hands.** She like everyone else was waiting for the coming attack, but while they knew the attack was coming didn't mean they had been doing nothing. Eagle fighters along with other smaller unshielded craft where deeper into the atmosphere, too low to be risk for an attack. The transport ships had either landed on the surface or had gone back to Valhalla for the moment. The warships had spread out over the invasion area and they were waiting with their shields at maximum. They didn't have to wait long as multiple flashes appeared in the distance.

"General, we have 562 ships located outside of beam and weapon range." Stated the radar operator

"Right where we expected them to be." confirmed the Captain "However it isn't as many ships as we expected."

"They must be holding back some ships to defend their capital or maybe they hope we will move away from defending our forces if they offer bait." stated the British Admiral before shaking his head. "Too bad for them we planned for this, shall we use our surprise. It is less ships then we wanted but they are where we wanted them."

"It is still enough." stated General Leong as she calmly lifted her cup coffee to her lips as if the massive amounts of Colonial guns turning toward her was nothing to worry about. "Activate our little surprise."

"Yes, ma'am." said the Captain as the order went out.

They were small very small with the span of less than 8 ft. by 8 ft. but the surprise they held for the colonial navy was catastrophic. They were a new type of mine developed by General Carter herself but instead of setting off a nuclear warhead which given the thick armor onboard colonial ships it may have not even been destroyed it activated a tinny time dalliance device which expended outwards into a bubble which covered a five-mile radius. Inside the bubble time was slowed down to a crawl compared to the outside, the major problem with the mine was that since it was so small to avoid detection the power supply was limited meaning the time dalliance field could only be held for 10 regular minutes. Unknowingly the colonial force had just jumped into the field of those mines, somewhere destroyed when the ships jumped in but not all of them.

**Onboard the Galactical Admiral Adama was watching the entire attack thanks to news raptors which where broadcasting the attack across the system. **In an attempt to raise hopes among the colonial public by showing them a great victory by their men and women in uniform.

"Let's hope this works." stated Saul as he watched the TV screen, since they were so close they could watch the broadcast through their ships own entertainment system and even in the CIC. "I want all stations ready to jump and fire the moment the Tau'ri ships take the come out to attack for forces."

"They have to come out or they will just stay back and get pounded either way we will do some damage to them." stated Saul

The news raptor was far enough back that it was safe form the coming battle but it was still able to zoom in as vipers began to be fired from their launch tubes and the massive guns on the ships turned to fire. Suddenly they stopped moving, even the vipers stopped in mid space and it looked as if someone had it the pause button on a movie. Everything was frozen in the flash of gun fire from the battlestar guns froze.

"What the frak?" inquired Saul as the news raptor scanned the colonial fleet every ship, every viper was frozen in place.

"By the Lords of Kobol." stated Admiral Adama "They weren't protecting their invasion force they were luring us into a trap."

**Onboard the Missouri General Leong had just finished her sip of coffee and was about to take another one. **In the distance she could see the Colonial fleet all 562 ships frozen in time waiting to be destroyed at a moment that was convenient to her forces.

"General, the time dalliance mines have been activated the Colonial Fleet is frozen in place." reported an operator.

"Nice little toy that General Carter made for us." stated the British Admiral "Too bad the power requirements mean they can only last 10 minutes."

"More than enough for our goals." stated General Leong, she knew the field only lasted 10 minutes and taken that into account, some of the mines had timers which would go before the time minutes was up. "Move the assigned ships to the first timed mines and prepare to destroy the colonial ships in the field."

"Yes ma'am." confirmed the captain as the order went out and the assigned ships began moving.

**Back onboard the Galactical Admiral Adama like so many other Colonials had no idea what was going on, their entire fleet had been frozen. **A rush of fear ran through him as the news raptor zoomed in on a line of 25 Tau'ri ships, all of them the smaller class ships. They moved to a reasonable distance away from the frozen ships. The rest of the fleet stayed behind meaning if his force jumped in they would be walking into a killing field. The ships all paused for a moment before suddenly the Colonial ships in front of them started moving again, seconds after that happened the ships exploded either from a nuke beamed onboard or a strike from one of the Tau'ri energy weapons. The entire line of colonial ships hadn't all started moving only small sections, with the Colonial ships in those sections that where moving destroyed the Tau'ri ships moved toward another section of frozen ships and began the process all over again.

"By the Lords of Kobol, they are destroying the fleet piecemeal." stated Saul

"How…how are they doing that?" inquired Adama as another group of Colonial ships were destroyed.

**Onboard the effected battlestars they had no idea what was going on, to them they had just jumped into a combat zone and where ready to launch a counter attack. **Viper pilots where being launched out of tubes and guns where moving into firing position. To them it was as if nothing was wrong, nothing was happening.

In the CIC, the same was going on Admiral Nagata, the head of the entire colonial navy who was leading this operation personally. She knew this was their last best shot, if they didn't get the Tau'ri away from Tauron and if they didn't support the ground attack then their hope was a stale mate on the ground and that helped no one. Luckily, she had a plan and it was as simple as it was perfect, her force would jump in outside of Tau'ri weapon range and fire at them with their massive guns. The guns were out of range of the Tau'ri ships but that was more of an accuracy thing in space because there was nothing to slow down the shell. The Tau'ri would have to move forward to get into firing range for their weapons and then Admiral Adama and his force would jump in and shell Tau'ri positions before the Tau'ri commanders knew what happened. Then they would all jump out, that wouldn't force the Tau'ri out of Colonial Space but it would give them the edge on the ground.

"Ok, I want the vipers to form up into…" started Admiral Nagata as suddenly alarms began going off.

"What is it?" inquired her commander

"Tau'ri ship right in front of us!" yelled the Dradis operator

"How?" inquired Admiral Nagata as a flash of light filled the CIC, when it faded there was an item maybe a meter and half tall. On its side was a nuclear symbol along with something else, there was a cartoon painting of a green helmeted figure in red with a black face and with white gloves on. Above it in a bubble were the worlds, Kaboom. While she didn't know it the last image she saw was a painted-on picture of Marvin the Martian.

Admiral Adama and everyone else watched the Bellerophon, the last Hercules class battlestar and Admiral Nagata's flag ship go up in a nuclear fireball.

**Onboard the Missouri and the other ships of the Tau'ri invasion force everything was calm, the time dalliance mines had worked perfectly. **They had frozen the Colonial fleet in place and thanks to spacing out the timers so not all of them turned off at the same time it allowed a much smaller force to destroy the Colonial force.

"Ma'am it should take only a few more minutes to finish off the fleet in front of us." reported an Admiral to General Leong. "There are more ships over Caprica and Gememon then we expected but nothing we can handle."

"Very well, once they are destroyed I want the colonial navy driven from this system and our other operations to begin." Ordered General Leong with a smile.

**Down on the surface the Tau'ri forces which was made of mostly Americans were being held up as they attempted to cross the bridge from Hypatia to keep their assault going. **They were held up because of three major factors, first the colonials had finally shown some spine and where dug in and fighting desperately to keep the marines and army from breaking out. Second, they had moved in some heavy anti-armor guns and lastly the bridge was severing as a bottle neck keeping them from moving forward like they wanted.

Near the front of the advance Private Torren Shepard took cover behind a destroyed colonial truck, nearby a destroyed Leopard III main tank lied with multiple shell holes through its front armor. The there was a burning APC on the other side with a few of his brother's and sister's in arms lying dead on the concrete. There was of course more Colonial vehicles burning and destroyed but his eyes locked on his own dead. He was looking at the tank when another shell slammed into a nearby building, behind which a Puma recon vehicle was located.

"Why don't they take that damn thing out!" yelled Torren to an infantry man beside him.

"We outclass the Colonials in almost everything but their guns have a longer range then ours do." Stated the army solider "What we need is…"

He stopped as he pointed toward a vehicle which was pushing through the wrecks on the bridge. Torren followed his finger and looked at the vehicle heading toward them. It had a much wider base then a Leopard tank and instead of having a single large track on either side it had two tracks on each side for a total of four. It was bigger than a Leopard III tank and was too big to fit through the Stargate. The turret was located way in the back with the barrel which was shaped like a diamond poking all the way over the length of the body. Along it's body and around the turret where multiple extensions which were maybe 8 inches long and two inches wide. They looked to be lights of some kind but there were too many of them and they were in odd places. The commander of the tank was standing out of his copula without a care in the world. He had even taken off the bottom half of the helmet which was detectable so that he could smoke on what looked to be a cigar.

"Finally a Lion!" yelled the solider as the Lion tank rolled forward like an unstoppable beast. It rolled until it was right in line with them when a shell from the colonial anti-tank gun located down the road came calling. It never touched the Lion, instead it slammed into a shield which protected the Tau'ri heavy tank.

"You there, where is the target?" yelled the Commander of the Lion in what surprising was a New England accent to Torren as multiple bullets bounced off the shield.

"20 miles down the road!" yelled Torren as he pointed toward the gun "We have already hit them with multiple rockets, artillery and airstrikes they keep bringing the gun back online. Whatever you say about them, they are stubborn."

"Well let's put an end to that." stated the commander "Damn 20 miles, we must use the over charge."

"Over charge?" inquired Torren to the solider beside him.

"The normal range for that gun is 15 miles but if they build up the charge they can hit things over 25 miles but it takes longer before they can fire again." explained the army solider as the barrel of the tank began to glow a deep shade of green. Then with a bolt the Lion fired it's modified and minimized ancient beam cannon. The shot which in its larger cousin could cut straight through a wraith hive ship shot forward and slammed into the Colonial anti-tank gun. It went up in an explosion and then the Lion sat for a while before moving forward, as it did three more guns opened up on the Lion, the lion didn't fire right away instead it rotated it's barrel toward the nearest of the field guns. Two minutes after the lion fired the first time, it fired again destroying another colonial gun. Then it's turret turned toward the third gun and waited, two minutes later and multiple colonial shells slamming into the shield, the Lion roared again and the third Colonial gun was destroyed.

"Move forward!" yelled an officers voice as the Americans began to push forward, the bottle neck was broken and the built up forces which was located on the other side of the river. Those forces would soon be across because the bridge was now cleared and multiple portable bridges where being set up by army engineers.

**Only a few hundred yards away and under a now heavy battered and all but destroyed base, Secretary Cain and a handful of other commanders tried to get a reign over the situation which was growing ever darker. **

"We have lost contact with our last four anti-tank guns holding the bridge." reported a younger officer as the lights began to flicker.

"We can't hold the base if they cross the river in force there is nothing we can do to stop them." Stated the General "Frak, where are those convoys of reinforcements I ordered, they couldn't have all been destroyed."

"General, we have gotten no word from anything of them and the handful of reinforcements that have shown up have been too mauled to be of any real use." stated an aid as suddenly alarms began going off.

"Frak, enemy armor has breached the main gate." stated the General "We need to get out of here."

"Agreed." stated Cain "Still no word from the Navy?"

"No ma'am, last we heard was that Admiral Nagata was launching her attack and then the wireless went down. "We have heard nothing from her."

"The Tau'ri must have destroyed the transmitter." stated the General as they rushed toward the emergency exit. It was a fast elevator ride up to a hidden armored hanger/garage. Sitting there waiting for them where three Raptors and five military vehicles.

"Everyone get in." ordered the General as the leaders spread out among the vehicles to improve the chances that some of them would make it to their secondary command center which was located almost 350 miles away.

Cain found herself in one of those Raptors as it was towed out from its hidden hanger and into a battle scared area. The hanger was hidden behind a fire door beside a parking structure on the far side of the base from the city center. Even so the building where pot marked with evidence from shelling and bullet holes. From the side window of her Raptor she could see an intersection where colonial soldiers where trying to hold back the oncoming Tau'ri. Judging from how desperate they looked and the number of burning vehicles they were failing.

"Taking off, be ready to jump if we have too." said the pilot as the Raptor took off in the tight street staying low until finally gaining some height. As the pilot made the turn to head due south toward the command center Cain got a good look at the burning city with the Tau'ri flag flying proud over the hill of heroes. Her blood boiled at the sight but then she saw two things that made her blood turn to ice, on the river where now three pontoon bridges with troops moving across them with three more going up. That was horrifying enough but then she saw in the distance a massive swarm of Tau'ri craft but they weren't heading toward her, they were heading away straight toward Lezbha.

**Cain wasn't the only one who's blood had turned to ice, so had Admiral Adama.** He was currently sitting over Caprica with 462 ships which were supposed to take part in either the counter attack or where assigned to defend the Capital world of Caprica and her sister world of Gememon. He like so many others had just watched 562 colonial ships get slaughtered in a way he had never seen and didn't understand. He knew that in Picon fleet command which was in the same system they were likely in just as big of panic, that was clear because he had yet to receive any order from the desk commanders who called that place home.

"Admiral, dradis confirms the Tau'ri fleet is breaking up." stated the Dradis operator "Sir, they are sending an estimated 400 ships straight at us and leaving the rest over Tauron."

"We outnumber them." stated Saul "For whatever Fraken good that does it."

Adama paused for a moment, he knew his orders where to attack the Tau'ri and if that should fail he had to defend Caprica, Gememon and Picon. Since Caprica and Gememon had the most population they were the going to be the focus of the any defense. Even though Picon had the fleet command losing it wasn't as important as losing the Capital world. He also knew that his ships were as good as dead when those Tau'ri ships made the short journey across the star system toward them.

"How long until they get here?" inquired Adama

"15 minutes." Reported the operator "They have to go around the sun to get to us so that bought us some time. They will also have to get past fleet command defenses and that could buy us some time."

"They should have evacuated Picon by now, they started it ever since the Tau'ri attacked started their attack." stated Saul "They should have be cleared out by now."

"Alright, get me in touch with the commanders on the ground and on Picon." Ordered Adama as he picked up the wireless broadcaster.

"And what are you going to tell them?" inquired Saul

"That they aren't going to get any help from us, we are leaving." Explained Adama as the entire CIC looked at him. "We need to reform and regroup. If we stay here we die."

"And go where?" inquired Saul

"Scropia." Ordered Adama

**Admiral Adama wasn't aware that the Scropia, Libra and Sagittaron was the last place they wanted to be.** The whole system was swarming with Akula class stealth ships which had been standing by to launch their attack. The Akulas which had been hunting in bands across the star systems had all come together to launch a massive attack on the Scropia ship yards and the Colonial Navy in the star system. In total 90 Tau'ri ships where cloaked in the system, 89 of those ships where the Akula class ships with the other one being the original stealth ship and the only one which so far had a shield along with a cloaking, the Odyssey.

The Odyssey was severing as the command ship for the attack, most of the ships where gathered around their main target, the Scropia shipyards. With the amount of ships that had been lured away from defending the shipyards to retake Tauron meant that the cloaked ships could get in close enough. They began their attack as one. Within seconds of each other nuclear warheads appeared on 90 ships or space stations in the system. The warheads went off at the same moment filling the system with light and causing people who were already on the edge of panicking to go over the edge. Before they had time to even yell at each other over the wireless 90 more explosions filled space, this time along with the warships the shipyards themselves began to go up.

The massive attack on Scropia caused automatic wireless alerts and call for aid to go out to every colonial ship within range and out to the rest of what remained of the Colonial Navy. That alert reached Admiral Adama moments before he was about to order the jump. He had been fighting with the Commanders under his command who wanted to stay and fight, they believed that if the Tau'ri where coming at them they would win. Only when they confirmed that Picon fleet headquarters and all the defenses around them had been brushed aside with ease by the Tau'ri did it hit them that they had to run.

"Frak, Scropia is under heavy attack by Tau'ri forces." Stated Saul as more wireless reports came in "Libra and Sagittaron report that they are being slaughtered and that they are pulling back to Aquaria? Why the frak would they go to a dead world?"

"Because it is unlikely to be any Tau'ri there right now." answered Adama "Order the fleet to jump to Aquaria."

Moments before the Tau'ri fleet got within weapon range the Colonial fleet began jumping away, leaving their Capital world open to the Tau'ri fleet.

Unaware of what was happening to his father or even to the rest massive blows falling on the Colonial armed forces, Major Lee Adama took off in a Viper only hours after he had been shot down. He took off with the dawn and turned toward Hypatia, in the distance he could see a massive cloud of dust.

"Command, Apollo I got a lot of dust to the South." stated Lee over the wireless as the Vipers and Raptors formed up. The vipers where gaining height in order to cover the ground attack Raptors and the pre-jet engine older vipers which would be used in a ground attack role.

"Apollo, Command we hear you and our best guess is that is dirt being kicked up from artillery shells." stated the voice over the wireless. "We estimate that the nearest enemy formation is 70 miles to the South and advancing toward us, we estimate contact taking place in the middle in about an hour."

"Understood." confirmed Adama even as he looked at the massive amount of dust. "I don't see any explosions taking place in that area."

"Enemy contact!" yelled a voice as Lee's eyes left the ground and looked ahead, for once the Tau'ri crafts where easy to see. They were painted black to better hide at night and in space but the sun was rising and their black outlines stood out in the clear skies.

"How many do you have?" inquired Lee

"Unknown, I am having trouble getting lock on with Dradis." stated the voice "But I can sure see a lot of them."

Lee looked at them and something was off, he had seen the Tau'ri eagle fighters up close when he was a guest onboard the Missouri back before the war. He knew that the Eagle had slightly downward sloped wings but in profile the aircraft coming toward them where straight horizontal with no sloop.

"Those aren't fighters." stated Lee as he began to look around, searching the sky for the Tau'ri fighters even as attack orders where being given out by controllers on the ground. That is when Lee noticed that his missile alarm wasn't going off, if he could see the Tau'ri he was clearly within range of their missiles but yet they hadn't yet to fire.

**Above and behind them the sky was full of Eagle fighters, they had moved in around Lezbha flying over the city to get the Colonial's from behind.** Now they were behind and above them, prefect attack formation. They had gotten in close to the Colonials and so far the colonials had no idea that they where there, the colonials flew in V formations of five vipers while above them the Tau'ri got ever closer. None of the Eagles had turned on their onboard missile locking system because it would have alerted their target instead they had other plans.

"Sky Eye this is Boar leader." said the lead pilot in a group of Eagles over to a modified Condor bomber which was being used as an midair radar station. "I got the bandits in sight."

"We copy boar leader turn vector to 290 and prepare to fire we have missile lock on the enemy." Stated Sky Eye, with their long-range radar system they could lock onto the multiple Colonial aircraft all as one making sure that no one accidently locked onto the same target. "Be advised we have reports from the ground and from radar that the enemy has deployed propeller driven fighters for ground attack."

"Understood." said Boar Leader as he and his flight of 4 eagles turned to get into position. The sky was full of Eagles doing the same as multiple radar birds guided the attack force in. Once the missiles were fired it would be a free for all as the Eagle's swooped in on the vipers down below.

"Boar leader, did they say propeller driven?" inquired Boar 4

"Yes, and don't get cocky kid propeller driven can fly at lower speeds and make tighter turns because of it then we can even do." stated Boar Leader as he locked onto a Colonial Viper and waited for the order.

**Down below Lee was searching the sky for the fighters he knew had to be somewhere, he had checked every location in front of him before finally looking behind him.** His training told me that there was no way they could be behind him; the enemy was coming from in front of him so how could they be behind him. Even so he looked and his eyes widened as he saw the formation of Eagle's above and behind him.

"Enemy Fighters, behind us!" yelled Lee but it was too late as the first viper went up in a fireball. He jerked his control down and his viper dove for the deck as a missile flew overhead. It missed by only a couple of feet.

"Damn, my turned at the last moment." complained Boar leader as the sky filled with explosions as the viper force was decimated in the opening moments.

**On the ground the soldiers which had been sitting on the back of Tanks, APC or in recon vehicles all looked up at the explosions wondering what was going on.** Then they stopped Tau'ri fighters engaging their own vipers above their heads. Back at the defense line around Lezbha the anti-air defense network came alive as AA guns opened up however the air battle was taking place on the outer edge of their effective range. Even so they fired scaring the newly arrived troops from Hypatia.

"Frak, those Tau'ri are here already?" inquired Medea as she placed her hand on top of her helmet to make sure it stayed on incase shell fragments landed on her.

"Only in the air, I am sure their ground forces are far away." reassured her friend Acacia as she looked over the top of the front-line trench. She could see the tail end of the massive armored force heading forward and all the multiple layers of defense which protected her and everyone in the trenches from any real harm. Suddenly the roar of a missile flying overhead caused her to duck only seconds before the nearest AA gun was hit by the missile.

"Frak!" cursed Acacia as pieces of dirt came falling over her bouncing off her helmet.

Across the line multiple missiles where hitting the dozens of anti-air guns which surrounded the city. The goal of the attack was clear to make sure the Tau'ri had total control over the air and they were getting it.

**The Tau'ri recon force had reached the ridge which was only 15 and a half miles away from the Colonial front lines.** They had reached their totally undetected having crossed the massive fields of farmland which was common in their area. They moved into the ridge which was only about 20 feet high and stopped their vehicles haul down so that only the top of them where over the ridge. The tactic dated back generations possibly back to the first cannons on the battlefield, this meant that only the main weapons where exposed and thanks to the tall grass which grew on the ridged which separated the two fields they were unseen. The recon force stopped and got a better view of the oncoming threat, they were a lot of targets and they were advancing slowly across the field but thanks to the coming harvest the field before them which would normally be full was cleared of crops. Each vehicle was clear as day and there was no hiding in there.

"It's a shooting gallery." reported the commander of the recon force as he radioed back to the main force. Then they waited, they didn't have to wait long, the colonial Pallas tank were slow and they had only reached about 2/3rds of the way across the field when the rest of the armored force showed up. The tanks moved up the ridge and rested haul down on the ridge, not all the tanks could do so and so the rest of the force had to stay back and wait for their chance to fire upon the enemy.

Near the center of the line Colonel Jager used the periscope built into the tank to give him a view of the soon to be battlefield. He would rather be standing up in the copula like any good commander but the risk of getting seen was too great. He wanted this to be a surprise and judging from how the Colonials where acting with troops just sitting on top of tanks and commanders and drivers poking their heads out of their vehicles it was going to be one massive surprised. He hit the command radio network

The Colonial tank commanders where still pushing forward even with the fighters doing battle in the sky above them, they had a job to do and so they focused on the task at hand and left the other tasks to others. They never expected the Tau'ri ground forces to be in the area so they never noticed the danger they were in. When the ridge line before them erupted in flames the Colonials had just enough time for their eyes to widen before the high speed sabot rounds slammed into the armor. Thanks to the heavy armor on the Pallas not all of them exploded in giant fireballs but more than enough became funeral mounds for them and the soldiers on them. Even those who didn't burst into flames still cost lives as colonial soldiers who had been sitting on the back of the tanks were thrown off. Some into the path of oncoming vehicles and where crushed to death. Before the colonials could do much more then breath the distance sound of thunder filled the air as the Jaguar mobile artery and the Tiger mobile rocket launchers which had stayed back behind the lines opened up.

Their shells screeched through the air before landing on top of the colonial trench lines causing the men and women inside to take cover. Now the missiles fired by the tigers they had another target, they flew over the tank battle but broke apart into hundreds of small bomblets. Each of those bomblets contained a green liquid which burst into flames the moment the bomblet exploded. Dragon Fire which was a Tau'ri modification to the Colonial Hade's Fire which was basically ancient Greek Fire covered the battlefield but it didn't hit the colonials in the trenches or even in their tanks. The Dragon fire burned not in the trenches but right before them, the fire was covering the multiple layers of barbwire, mines, anti-tank and anti-personal defenses which were supposed to stop everything from coming close to the trench lines.

The fires had three main goals and all of them worked to the Tau'ri advantage, first the fires were burning away the defenses, the concrete dragon teeth which were supposed to stop tanks where melting under the heat. Same went for the hedgehogs whose massive steel frames where being twisted into hunks of metal. The mines both personal and tank where beginning to cook off causing massive amounts of expositions as they went off. With one move weeks of preplacing defenses where gone or made totally useless. The second advantage was that the flames was masking the line of fire for the colonials in the trenches including their anti-tanks guns taking them out of this part of the fight. Lastly and most importantly it trapped the advancing Colonial armored, they were trapped between the Tau'ri armor firing on them from behind a rise and the dragon flame. The Colonials were trapped and they knew it, behind them was nothing but burning green flames in front of them the Tau'ri where firing round after round at them.

It wasn't coming up all roses for the Tau'ri, being haul down meant that they presented a small target but it was a target that still could be hit. With their heavy armor of that the Colonial Pallas had most of all in its front armored plate it took between two and three shots to get through it. All the Colonial vehicles where heavily armored and all of them carried large guns. When one of those shells from a Pallas main gun found the top of a Leopard III tank a little down the way from Jager, the turret of the Tau'ri tank went flying and the crew inside went to meet their maker.

Jager knew what he had to do, he had to give the Colonials a target beside his tanks to shot at, a target that could take the pounding.

"Lions forward!" ordered Jager as the massive heavy tanks of the Tau'ri moved forward and over the rise. Seeing the outline of the tanks as the came over the rise caused every colonial gun in the field to turn toward those tanks. Unlike the Leopard the Lion had a shield which took the blows with ease as they began to rumble forward. The lions moved forward slowly by Tau'ri standards but with ungodly speed by colonial standards as they took the blunt of the fire. The issue was that while the shields stopped shells a human could pass through them and by now the Colonial's foot where out and trying to take out the Lions. The lions could stand up to almost anything but soldiers could pass through their shields, so they had to be protected from them.

"We need to make this a mobile battle." stated Jager into the command channel "We need to get clear shots from the sides where the armor is thinner."

"Sir, we are ready." Came a voice of another Tank Commander

"Let's get the fuckers." Came another voice "For Valhalla."

"All forces, attack!" yelled Jager into the command line as the Leopards began to climb the ridge to enter the battle.

**News was still being broadcasted out of Tauron and just like so many other moments the news media was getting live footage of the massive tank battle taking place outside of Lezbha.** They were broadcasting from the top floor of a nearby office building. The view gave them a clear line of sight over the raging fire, above them Colonial forces where trying to bring down artillery fire but Tau'ri counter battery fire was knocking them down almost as fast as they could open. A gun couldn't fire more than two rounds before a Tau'ri shell came calling.

"As you can see, our forces have meet what is likely a small recon force of the 13th tribe…and…Zeus save us." said the reporter as the camera man zoomed in to show a flood of Tau'ri tanks and vehicles far more than the colonial counterparts coming over the rise and entering the battle. The speed of the enemy was unimaginable, using a speed gun which normally was used to monitor high speed police chases they measured the tanks going over 60 mph. That was impossible, before she could say anything more they spotted the dark shapes on the horizon as the Tau'ri aircraft entered the battle firing their own missiles and turning colonial vehicles into burning coffins. Then a missile aimed at the Colonial army artery observer slammed into the roof of the building ending their lives and cutting the feed.

**Well I hope you enjoyed this chapter and the 1st part of the battle, now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	71. Chapter 71

**Important Note: Just to let you all know so I don't get a flood of emails, it will be a while before I update again, maybe not until the beginning of next month. The next two weeks are very busy for me and I will not have much time to write, I have a bachelor party for one of my high school friends this weekend, a concert I am going to on the following Thursday and my friend's wedding of which I am a groomsmen in that Saturday and on top of that work. Needless to say, I will not have much free time until after Sunday the 26****th****, so you will just have to wait. Sorry and I hope you understand, now enjoy the chapter.**

**Wilkins75.**

**Chapter 71 Vengeance is Born**

The space over the twin planets of Caprica and Gememon was almost devoid of colonial navy activity, the fleet of 462 ships had mostly jumped away leaving only around 75 ships and most of them where the phalanx patrol ships. The small patrol ship which had just enough room for it's 20 men crew, a single raptor to land and a handful of weapons was never designed to go into the fight that their captains where now preparing themselves for. The small ships together couldn't equal in size one of the Tau'ri battleships which were now powering themselves past the remains of Picon high command on a path that would take them to the Capital world of the 12 colonies of Kobol. The Phalanx ships had only two real choices either they could fight or they could surrender, none of them had an FTL so following the larger battlestars was out of the question.

There were a handful of battlestars and others larger ships whose officers had disobeyed orders and had decided to fight for their homes. Vipers and raptors which had been assigned to bases on the surface of the twin planets also lined up to fight their oncoming threat. From the outside they outnumbered the Tau'ri, they had more ships, more fighters and yet all of them knew they had no real hope of stopping the coming attack.

"All vipers form up, we are going to focus on that big fraker up front." ordered the most senior flight as they headed straight toward the Tau'ri battleship, Lorraine. The French battleship was a monster Missouri class ship and one of those ships which had been built during the four years that the Tau'ri had built up while the Colonials where stuck in a time bubble. Behind it where six other battleships plus multiple Daedalus class cruisers, Galahad class destroyers with two carriers in the center protected by the ring of warships.

The vipers and raptors moved in on the massive ship, the small ships armed only with guns and missiles which was next to nothing compared to the shields that surrounded the Tau'ri ships. Over the years all the ships had been upgraded, while they all still had the bubble-like shield which was common among the powers of the galaxy, they also had a second layer shield which went right up against the haul of the ships. The viper and raptors unloaded upon the outer shield not knowing that a stronger shield rest just below that one. The battleship fired back with rail guns and anti-air missiles but generally ignored the swarming colonial spacecraft like a man ignored flies.

"I am charging up my FTL." stated a Raptor Pilot as he prayed to the Lord of Kobol and set the coordinates to the same location as the Tau'ri battleship. "I go to meet the Lords of Kobol."

"May Zeus, Ares, Athena and all the others go with you." Said another Raptor pilot.

With that he fired the last of his missiles and fired his chain gun before activating the FTL drive, moments later an explosion in the shield marked where the shield had prevented the Raptor from appearing inside the ship. Instead it slammed into the shield was the same effect that it would have had if the pilot had just rammed it, in other words no effect at all.

**Onboard the Lorraine the French Admiral in charge of the task group was beginning to get annoyed by all the colonial vipers and raptors buzzing around her ship like insects.** The colonials where dropping like flies but they simply just kept coming.

"Admiral shall I order in our Eagles?" inquired a Captain.

"No, why put our pilots at risk?" stated the Admiral as he stood on the bridge with his hands behind his back watching the Colonials throw their lives against his ship. "Unleash the drones and let's keep moving forward."

"Yes, sir." confirmed the Captain.

All over the ship, multiple doors opened to show long narrow tubes, to any colonial pilot who took notice of them they thought they were missiles until blue glowing tubes of light came shooting out. They began to dance around the ships before going out to strike at every colonial viper and raptor which got in range. These drones where based off the ancient ones however the Tau'ri had yet to perfect the design of the drones so their modern Tau'ri counterpart was lacking in speed to their ancient counterpart and the ancient's drone was smaller with a slightly stronger punch. Even so the blue glowing drones where more than enough for the unshielded enemy of the Colonial fleet. The major advantage of the Tau'ri drones was that they didn't require an ancient control chair to operate.

The colonial pilots tried to fight back, they tried to outrun the drones, they tried to shoot them down and all of that failed. Multiple explosions filled the space around the Tau'ri ships as they pushed their way through the colonial viper and raptor lines toward the twin worlds of Caprica and Gememon. Behind them part of the attack fleet had broken off and was finishing mop up work over Picon.

The colonial news broadcast system which had been left intact on purpose by the Tau'ri was broadcasting all of this live across the colonies. They did this not fully understanding that they were helping the Tau'ri out in three major ways, first was the images of the destruction of colonial forces was dis heartening to any colonial watching, second was that Colonial news channels were broadcasting the location and movements of colonial forces which was laughable stupid to the Tau'ri intelligence officers but was common during the Cylon war where things moved slowly. The third way was they were providing extra video evidence for the Tau'ri engineers who were watching how the new weapons functioned on an actual battlefield.

**A Tau'ri task force headed by the German battleship Bismarck oversaw clearing out the area around the world that formally held the central command for the Colonial Navy. **The space station which had been hit by an Asgard beam weapon had broken apart but it didn't mean it was lifeless. Automatic doors had sealed off compartments to keep people alive until rescue raptors could arrive.

Inside one of those compartments a group of a dozen workers who had been busy evacuating the valuable equipment and paperwork from space station when it was hit were trapped. The compartment was dark, with only the flashes of emergency lighting and light coming from a small window coming in.

"We need to get to a place where we can call for help." coughed a woman in a now dirty colonial navy uniform.

"Who will come look out there." Countered another office worker who had never fired a weapon after getting out of basic. One by one the small band took turns looking out of the small porthole window, the space around them was filled with wreckage all of it colonial. They could see parts of ships floating like trash on the sea but it wasn't just metal out there. There were multiple bodies, the nearest one was of a man with thick glasses, he had worked in the same accounting department as the rest of them and even in death in the cold vacuum of space he held to his chest onto what looked to be a stack of papers. Then in the distance they saw the dark deadly shapes of the Tau'ri ships, the largest one a black shape looked like a sword which was now hanging over the undefended world of Picon.

"Lords of Kobol, protect us." prayed the woman as suddenly all of them where engulfed in light only to reappear on a harden deck in what looked to be a hanger of some kind. It took a moment for them to realize that they had somehow been transported to a Tau'ri ship, Tau'ri guards stood on nearby catwalks and multiple ones stood around the area looking at them. The small group wasn't alone either multiple colonials where coming into the hanger all appearing in flashes of light. Some of them where in space suits and others where in dirty uniforms all where surprised. When one of them appeared with a weapon, one of the Tau'ri guards fired a weapon that brought them to their knees screaming before passing out. Then a different guard would walk up and take the weapon before going back to their post.

"I guess we are prisoners." Said nearby officer in a stained and blood covered uniform, as suddenly a group of three marines tried to rush a nearby guard and take his weapon. The one in the front was shot dead before he could even reach the Tau'ri. The sight of their comrade's head exploding caused the other two to stop dead in their tracks.

"Listen up!" yelled a voice over the speaker "You are prisoners of war and any attempt to hard one of the guards will be met with deadly force, stun rounds will only be used when you are first transported in. If you start a riot we will open the hanger to the vacuum of space killing you all, our forces are equipped with combat space suits and we will not let you endanger this ship in anyway."

With that one of the guards shot the dead prisoner with a strange looking gun three times and then before the eyes of the new prisoners the charging hothead marine disappeared into nothingness.

**Down on Tauron on the fields outside of Lezbha the Tau'ri armored forces meet their colonial counterparts and here like everywhere else the battle wasn't going the Colonial way.** The Colonial Pallas tank was heavier even then the heavy tank the Tau'ri had, the Lion. It had thicker armor and armor on the side which was thicker than even the front armor of the either the Lion or the Leopard. The Pallas was extremely slow, had a turret that couldn't rotate that fast and they had autoloaders to load their shells instead of trained personal. This last difference on the surface didn't seem that big of an issue however no autoloader made by my either the Tau'ri or even the Colonials was as fast as a well-trained person when it came to loading the gun.

"Fire!" yelled Jager as his Leopard fired into the side of a Pallas which was trying to turn it's turret to fire at him. The issue was that that the Pallas couldn't fire and move at the same time and every one of the Tau'ri tanks could. At Jager's command his gunner fired an armor piercing sabot round, something else the colonials hadn't developed into the side of the Pallas. The metal dart went into the side of the tank before piercing the fighting compartment killing the crew inside. The Leopard kept moving past the burning wreck as suddenly another nearby Leopard flipped over as a bomb from a propeller driven dive bomber fell on Leopard. With the Leopard on its side it was a huge target for a nearby Pallas who fired into the bottom of an already knocked out tank. While the fire did kill the crew of the Leopard, the shot was worthless because the tank was already out of the fight, the Pallas commander had destroyed a none threat while injuring the swarming fighting Tau'ri vehicles.

A Puma recon vehicle ripped through the colonial front line of tanks to head into the main body where the most infantry was located. They weren't as well armored as their colonial counterparts or even as well armed, the colonial Phrygrian was armed with a heavy cannon designed to take down Cylons. It had a slow rate of fire while the Pumas had different weapons ranging from mini-guns capable of putting out 6,000 rounds a minute to heavy 50 caliber machine guns, tow missiles and grenade launchers. The heavy amount of mix fire was tearing into the colonial infantry who had dismounted and where attempting to make a base of fire. In principle, the colonials where making a tactically sound move to make a base of fire, however they put everything up front and the colonial infantry had never been gone up against such speed or enemies that could flank with ease.

Maybe if the colonial forces in the trench line could fire at the vehicles the battle in the field outside of Lezbha wouldn't be going as badly for the colonials however the Tau'ri had dropped dragon fire bomblets between the colonial trench line and the battleground. This meant that the colonials couldn't get a clear line of sight with their anti-tank guns, with their protective detail done the Tau'ri artillery force located behind the line began to fire on the trench line and the defenses inside the city itself.

**Inside the trench line Medea and Acacia where cowering in the trench as the rain of death kept coming in all around them.** The two recent graduates of high school, followed by boot camp where not alone as across the line men and women where keeping their heads down as the artillery kept coming down on them. Above their heads the Tau'ri where sending their own missile fire to take down any colonial gun which attempted to fire back.

"Don't worry the Tau'ri dropped hade's fire between us and them." reassured Medea to Acacia and herself as the sound of a land mine cooking off because of the flame added to the sound of battle. "Unless they have a frak load of sand we safe aside from artillery fire."

"Doesn't feel safe." Countered Acacia as multiple large speakers in preplaced position across the trench line began to play religious music, this was done to calm down the soldiers and was a tradition which dated back to before unification of the colonies.

"Beautiful." said Acacia as the religious music calmed her and everyone down. Then dark shadows passed over head, Acacia like so many others looked up to see Tau'ri bombers flying overhead heading into the city.

**In the sky the colonial pilots where faring as well as their counterparts on the ground, which was not well.** The Tau'ri eagle fighters had gotten the jump on the viper force and had forced them down to ground level. Any viper that attempted to gain altitude was instantly brought to attention of every Tau'ri fighter in the area, even staying low wasn't helpful as the Tau'ri missiles where capable of locking on much lower targets then the colonial version and then there was ground fire. It was like a duck hunt only the viper and raptors where the ducks and there was no bag limit. Surprising the best aircraft in the colonial force was the older pre-space flight driven vipers, they didn't give out as much heat for a missile lock, could fly lower and slower. Those old warbirds didn't draw the attention of the Eagles as fast as their modern counterparts.

"Flights report in is anyone there?" yelled Lee into his wireless as he tried to get a picture of what was going on. He flew over the battlefield just above tree top level, if Tauron had any trees even so he didn't like what he saw. Colonial tanks where burning and the Tau'ri forces on the ground where moving so fast. He pulled the trigger and did get a burst from his machine gun which did cause one of their recon vehicles to blow up. As he flew past the battle and was preparing to make a turn to come back around he risked gaining some height, that is when he saw it. Another column of Tau'ri vehicles headed from the North toward the colonial lines, only this time there was no colonial armor standing in their way and if he knew what was likely happening on the ground, the army had pulled units from a safe area of the line to where the Tau'ri where already at.

"By the Lords of Kobol." Stated Lee as he got back onto his wireless. "Apollo to flight command, Apollo to fight command come in flight command…Apollo to Lezbha air base come in...is anyone there?"

**Unknown to Apollo the Lezbha air base which had taken off from only a short while ago was in the middle of a fight in fact all of Lezbha had turned into a war zone.** Not only near the front line but inside the heart of the city itself. During the night when the colonials had been so focused on where their counter attack was going to happen, teams of special forces from almost every nation in the Tau'ri had entered the city by clocked owl. They had moved through the city using a mix of life sign detectors to move unseen in the city or hiding themselves as civilians and blending into the mob which was being evacuated. Now they came out, machine gun fire filled the street as pre-prepared machine gun crews opened on Colonial soldiers as they tried to move toward the front line. The special forces members didn't stand and fight like the colonials had been trained to deal with, they fired and moved to the next location. This caused more confusion inside the colonial command system and slowed down movements of reinforcements toward the location where they were going. Civilian vehicles which had been either abounded during the evacuation or stolen from their proper location where being turned into makeshift roadblocks. These roadblocks wouldn't have stopped an enemy but if they were set up in certain spots where snipers and other small arms fire could keep them from being removed.

One of the main targets of the special forces was the airbase which severed as the command and control center for the air operations over Lezbha and the surrounding area. Small arms fire from nearby houses drew the attention of what was left of the defending force. Then the same group of dark shapes which had flown over the trench line moments earlier arrived over the airfield, these aircraft were Osprey ground attack aircraft and Taita fighter bombers and they had one target, the airfield. They opened on the field with missiles and cannon fire killing anything that even looked colonial. Seconds after their first pass flights of Owls came in low over the untouched runway. They flew in prefect formation having practiced this attack on Valhalla both on a dummy field and in the computer simulation. They had their back ramps open allowing a tail gunner to fire a mini gun into the nearby buildings keeping the colonial's heads down. The Owls never touched the ground instead they hovered only a foot or so off the ground allowing rangers to run off the back as they began to take the base from the colonial forces.

Across the city more owls where appearing over key location and unload more soldiers to take part in the fight for Lezbha. They either did the same move as the rangers at the airbase jumping out of Owls hovering inches above the landing spot or they fast roped down. Either way the results where the same as Tau'ri forces landed behind the lines and began to take down key objects, power, water, communication and most importantly they slowed down colonial movements.

**Out on the battlefield Jager and the other armored forces where in the middle of a very one sided fight, the colonials where getting in a few punches knocking out a Leopard or destroying a Puma with a burst from a heavy machine cannon on their version of an APC. **Even so the Tau'ri where simply moving too fast and then the battle began even more one sided as the Osprey ground attack aircraft and the Adders attack helicopters entered the mix. With the Adders firing their anti-vehicle missiles and firing their nose mounted machine guns and with the Ospreys doing attack run after attack run on the colonial armor until they were nothing more than burning wrecks. Not even the infantry was spared from death as they were mowed down like wheat in the field. Some of them tried to keep fight but as they watched the greatest armored force in the history of the 12 colonies get turned into burning wrecks.

The turning point came when a group of infantry popped out from behind cover and with a war scream, all one hundred of them charged straight toward a group of Lion tanks. The lions never even got a chance to fire as five Adders helicopters opened with their chain guns. They mowed down the charging infantry like wheat, their blood staining the ground red.

Seeing this other colonial soldiers began to throw down their weapons and surrender. First in groups of one and twos then entire squads gave up the fight and stood up to surrender. After a while the guns fell silent and Jager risked opening the hatch on the copula to get a view of the battlefield. Even with the periscope built into the tank with cameras that gave him a 360 degree view of the battle, it had been drilled into him ever since basic that a good commander stands up in his tank to get the best view possible.

When he opened the hatch, he saw the burning wrecks of the colonial army which had been driving toward Hypatia, they had been stopped cold. There was of course Tau'ri vehicles but they were few and far apart, the nearest one he saw had its front treads knocked off but other than that the Tank commander had his body out of the tank as the turret looked around for any threats. Nearby the infantry was busy collecting the surrendering colonials removing their weapons and preparing to march them back away from the battlefield. The plan was that they would be escorted by a couple of pumas, the walking wounded would walk while those incapable of moving would have to wait either for an Owl or beam up.

"Reform, our work isn't done!" yelled Jager into the radio as he began to reform the armored units to press the attack. Luckily the Dragon fire was masking his force as they reformed to carry unto the next phase of the attack.

In another star system President Richard Adar was in the eye of a storm of confusion as reports kept flooding in from almost half the worlds in the colonies. The Tau'ri where hitting them everywhere, Tau'ri warships in the skies over Caprica, Picon, Gemenon and of course Tauron. Tau'ri ships in hiding waiting to strike over Sagittaron, Libran and of above his own head over Scorpia. The colonial navy had been kicked out of two of the four systems, they had lost almost 80% of the fleet, most of those ships had gone down with all hands onboard. The likely death toll was already racing up to meet the death total lost in the 12 year long Cylon War and the Tau'ri had only launched their attack 12 hours ago. Picon fleet command was gone, the Scorpia ship yards where gone as well.

On the ground reports where coming in of Tau'ri forces racing across the fields of Tauron at speeds over 60 miles per hour. The Tau'ri where moving at speeds which all the experts said should have been impossible, they were moving in organized formations with speed something that the military experts said was impossible but the Tau'ri seemed to be able to do the impossible at every turn. It wasn't just limited to the ground or their tactics, they still had no idea how they had frozen a whole fleet of warships.

"Sir." Said a military officer "We need to consider getting you off world to say Canceron or Aerilon."

"How?" inquired Adar

"A raptor, is standing by we can jump you and others off world." Explained the officer.

"Sir, I have to say what all of us is thinking." stated a member of the Quorum from Libran, around the table the representatives from every colony was there. It was traditional that a member of the Quorum from every planet be on the same world as the President, since the Quorum had 12,000 members a thousand from each colony with an additional 2,000 members shared between the faith and the military it wasn't hard for a single member to by on the same world as the president. "Maybe it is time to consider surrender."

"Never." Cursed a Sagittarian member "We have the lords of Kobol on our side."

"Maybe you haven't noticed but the Lords of Kobol aren't doing us a fraken good right now." Snapped the Libran member "Sir we are beaten, our navy is on the run the army is being crushed, the only piece of good news is that the Tau'ri have no interest in nuking us. If it where the Cylons then our cities would be disappearing in nuclear fireballs."

"And because of that we have time." Countered the member from Picon "They don't have the force to occupy our worlds, in time we can build up our forces."

"And we will bleed them dry." Countered the member form Tauron "We will do hit and run attacks on their forces that hold our ground."

"If we keep the faith then we will be victorious." stated Priest Spiro "We have the Lords of Kobol on our side what force can stand against that?"

"The Tau'ri seem to be doing fine and have you seen how many men and women are dying because of it?" countered the Quorum member form Libran "The Tau'ri have told us that the only thing they really want is…"

"The heads of everyone who had a part in our little mission to Kobol." countered Adar

"And most important of all they want us to give up all right to our rightful birthplace, Kobol." Countered Vice President Spiro as multiple members of the Quorum nodded their heads in agreement but not all. "They may have their technology but we have something more powerful than anything in the galaxy, we have the power of the Gods themselves on our side."

"With all due respect, the Lords of Kobol aren't going to save us and I don't think anything will." said Libra Quorum member as he stood and left the room.

"Gentlemen, Ladies, I believe I will follow the advice of my military officials and pull back to a safe location." stated Adar as he rose from the table. "With luck, we can meet again when this dark shadow is no longer hanging over us all."

**The dark shadow which was a play on words for his president were squadrons of Eagle fighters for Lee Adama, he was among one of the last vipers still up in the air.** The anti-vehicle ground attack raptors where knocked out the sky, with no fighter cover they had been easy pickings for the Eagle fighters, their burnt and destroyed wrecks covered the ground, knowing that the fight was loss Lee began to pull back toward Lezbha. For once the number of aircraft in the sky helped him, with so many aircraft in such a small area the Tau'ri never noticed that one of them wasn't one of their own. Even so he stayed lowed, so low that he could see the gun battles taking place in the streets of Lezbha.

"Frak." cursed Lee as he made a turn following of all things the surface streets until he saw the airbase, it was aglow with fires, he could even make out gunfire coming from inside the buildings on base. He was about to push his engines to do an attack run when he noticed six eagles escorting a much larger transport, two on the wings and four providing over watching. He was behind them and had the jump on them for a change but then he would find himself at best going five against one and that would be if he brought down a fighter, if he targeted the larger craft which as far as he knew had shields it would be six on one. Lee turned his bird away from the battle, as he headed toward the small sea. He did a quick check of his fuel, he had just enough to reach the far side of the small ocean where in luck he would find a colonial base. Better to live to fight another day, then die. He moved just above building height and while that protected him from getting spotted by the Eagles it made spotting him from the ground easier.

He was spotted by a group of Tau'ri soldiers who had taken the top of a parking structure as a makeshift forward operation post and Owl landing zone. When they saw, the colonial viper moving through the sky it didn't take long for one of them to grab a shoulder mounted ground-to-air missile and get a lock one.

"Back area clear!" yelled another soldier as the armed man pulled the trigger sending the missile up and away on its deadly mission.

The blaring alarm of a missile lock went off inside Lee's viper as he cursed himself, he scanned the sky above him trying to find the eagle which had locked on him. As he did he dropped flares which was meant to confuse enemy missiles. From the ground, it actually looked pretty as the glowing flares dropped down, only issue was that the city itself was a warzone. The missile flew past the first group of flares but the second grouping did confuse it causing it to detonate. The explosion was too close as it caused Lee's viper to buck and get peppered with metal fragments.

"Frak…frak…not again." cursed Lee as his control panel light up like a pinball machine, the controls where shaking violently in his hands, his engines began to die and he knew his bird was falling apart. He lowered his landing gear and took aim at one of the long wide roads that most cities had on Tauron. Lee held his breath as he brought the bird in for a landing, it bounced once…two times, three times before finally staying on the ground. He hit the emergency parashot release as the injured warbird slowed down before coming to a stop. With it landed on the ground Lee paused for a moment to thank the Lords of Kobol for protecting him when two vipers he was flying in were shot down. He was in the middle of his prayer when a bullet smashed into the side of the landed viper reminding him he was now in the middle of a warzone.

**While Lee was running for his life, the Pelican transport that he had saw being escorted by Eagle fighters moved in on the airbase**. It flew low in one of the dangerous task that any of the pilots could carry out. He flew so slow that it could have landed but it remained wheels up and above the ground, then the back ramp lowered, the ramp lowered until it was a foot off the runway.

"Go!" yelled the Puma driver in the back-cargo area as he gunned the engine and drove off the end of the ramp and with a bounce came onto the runway, next another Puma and a Cougar APC. Then following the same route another Pelican came in only instead of three vehicles only a single two came off, both Leopards tanks. Tau'ri armor had just flown over colonial defenses and where inside the city.

**Up on the Missouri General Leong was watching the movement of not only her armored forces on the ground and the movement of the ships. **As an army, General she understood the movement on the ground better then she understood the movement of ships in space, but it didn't take the best tactical mind to see that the Tau'ri had gained total control over seven of the 11 still habitual worlds in the four system that the Colonials controlled.

"General we are about ready to begin the final assault on Lezbha." stated an aid

"Good." Stated General Leong "Once the battle has started order our ships to spread out, once we take Lezbha we will give the Colonials one last chance to surrender before they force us to take more drastic steps."

"General if I may, I know that the plans call for if the Colonial do not surrender that we begin orbital bombardment of key locations, power, water and the like but religious nut cases don't give up easily what happens if they don't surrender."

General Loeng looked at the young aid, he was too low of a rank to know what the final option was if the Colonials didn't give up the fight.

"Let's just say we will not be occupying their worlds and if they push it there may not be any more colonies of Kobol left." stated General Leong as another aid walked forward.

"Ma'am we have confirmation that President Adar is leaving Scorpio and heading toward command center Cancercon." Reported the aid

"As we expected he would." Confirmed General Leong "Good, make sure no ship intercepts him."

"Yes, General." said the aid as General Leong swallowed a little bit of her pride, she wanted to kill them, she wanted to order an eagle to shot down the raptor or beam in a nuke and end the colonial government leadership in one go. If she did that, then the confusion about who would be in command of the colonial government would lead to disorder and that would be fine if they wanted to occupy the colonies. If disorder rain in the colonial government then there would be no single person who could accept a surrender, it was also why they weren't bombing whole planets. With no central government giving them orders then the odds that worlds like Sagittarian and Gememon, the two most religious hard line plants would ever surrender without using the final option was unacceptably low. There would be an after the war, and the less they destroyed now, the quicker peace would reign. Even so if the Colonials didn't accept that it was over soon, then they would stop worrying about the state of civilian life after the war for the colonies and focus on ending the fight.

**In a totally different system, the raptor carrying President Richard Adar was one among many that jumped away from Scorpia as the government leaders spread out across the systems to places they believed safe.** Only one raptor didn't arrive at its assigned destination, the raptor carrying the Quorum senior quorum member from Lebran. That raptor had gone rogue and instead of jumping to its assigned location it went to the ancient capital of Lebran, Kingstown. Unlike the other colonies Lebran had once been a monocracy and still had a royal family who had long ago given up power but they were still technically the head of state for Lebran. They generally served the same propose as the royal family in the United Kingdom and that is how the Tau'ri had classified them. They were a state symbol and pride for the people of Lebran. The raptor flew toward the royal palace coming to a landing in the courtyard which had been designed for horse drawn carriages. When it landed the senior Quorum Member jumped off and moved into the palace. Over the centuries, the different Kings and Queens had gone to great lengths to make the palace grand and impressive with every rare and expressive element they could find. Beautiful artwork from some of the most famous artists in history where on the jeweled inlaid walls.

The Quorum member entered the inner most ceremonial hall, where in the past the royal family had signed the agreement to become part of the 12 colonies of Kobol. He entered to find the current King and Queen sitting in two full chairs with multiple Quorum members standing behind them along with members of the royal guards all of whom where armed. Across from them were two more chairs and four figures dressed in Tau'ri battle armor.

"Thank you for having us." said a voice as the Quorum member moved forward until he could see two figures sitting across from the King and Queen. He knew both as members of the Tau'ri, Doctor Richard Woolsey and Minister Fang Gan.

"We would be labeled as traitors if the other colonies found out that we were meeting with you." Said the King

"Maybe, but how would they do that?" inquired Woolsey "We have total control over the space in this system and in a sort amount of time a task force will arrive to reinforce our cloaked forces which are already over this world and so many others."

"Now, we don't want to do anything to your colonies, we didn't want this war but you forced our hand." Countered Fang Gan "Now your colony is the only one who was opposed to this war from the beginning and now your leaders are keeping you in a hopeless fight. We want to get you out of it."

"You want us to surrender our colony to you?" countered the Queen

"No, you have nothing we want." stated Woolsey "See when this war ends the power structure in the colonies will forever be changed, in fact there may not be any united government anymore."

"How would you like to be an independent world again?" inquired Fung Gang

**Outside of Lezbha two girls native to Libran where against trench waiting like everyone else, they had had their weapons and waiting for a battle they hoped would never come.** There was some hope that it wouldn't because the Tau'ri had dropped their version of Hades Fire outside the trench lines and the only thing that could put that out was sand. Unless they dropped tons of sand on the field they couldn't get through and even then it would take time for the sand to cool enough to be walked upon safely.

The sound of gun fire and expositions could be heard coming from behind the lines as the men and women in the trenches watched the city burn behind them. The only other sound was the sound of the religious music playing over loud speakers to keep everyone calm. Down the line from Acacia and Medea they could hear a unit singing along with the music.

"Must be a Sagittarian unit down there." stated a nearby member "They are singing in old Saggitarian."

"Well the song is beautiful." stated Acacia

"And peaceful." added Medea

**In the last of the three trench lines was a media outpost where news media had gathered to record the battle.** The news reporters where not focused on the green fire which covered the area just outside the front trench line, instead they had their cameras aimed into the city which had become a battleground.

"As you can see the fight is inside Lezbha as Tau'ri forces have landed behind the line." Stated a reporter as suddenly the sound of gunfire stopped along with the religious music coming from the load speakers. "What the?"

The next thing they saw where flashes of green as the green flames which had been burning across the trench line where gone as the Lions used their beam weapons to put out the flames.

"What the frak?" inquired the reporter as the camera man spun around toward the spot where the flames used to be. The flames where gone but thick clouds of steam covered the battlefield limiting their visual, then figures began to form out of the mist. Dark figures, all armed and all deadly.

"By the Lords of Kobol." said Acacia as she looked over the trench line, rumbling toward them out of the mist where countless numbers of tanks, APC, recon vehicles and infantry all heading toward them. Then with a roar the aircraft flew toward them. That is when the music began again, it wasn't religious music or any colonial music she had ever heard before. It was a heavy rock music with lots of cursing only they were using the Tau'ri word for Frak. One like kept playing repeatedly inside her head as fear swelled within her and her hands started to shake causing her rifle to bounce in her hand.

"Vengeance is Born, Death is coming for you, For Vahalla I hope you burn in hell!"

**Well I hope you enjoyed this chapter, now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	72. Chapter 72

**Chapter 72 A Rendezvous with Death**

The colonials couldn't believe their eyes, coming toward them through the mist caused by the huge fires being suddenly put out where columns of tanks, armored personal carriers, recon vehicles and soldiers all of them Tau'ri and all heading toward them. The massive colonial army which had been there was gone, the lines of defenses that had been preplanned since the end of the Cylon war and had taken months to make where now gone. The mines had cooked off from the heat, the steal hedgehogs where melted twisted metal, even the concrete dragon teeth had been broken apart by the intense heat. The only defenses which seemed to be intact were the diches which had once been filled with water. The water was gone meaning that they were just dried diches.

"My Gods." said Medea as she like everyone else in the colonial line where gripped with fear. The Tau'ri where coming ever closer, their soldiers stepping over what remained of the posts which had once held barbwire. The sound of the Tau'ri music was still blaring replacing the religious music with calls for vengeance and hate toward the colonials for what they did at Valhalla. Then she saw the flying vehicles heading toward them, they were extremely thin head on and unlike Raptors. Then came the sound of thunder followed by screeches through the air.

"Artillery!" yelled an officer as Medea and Acacia took cover in the proper approved way to protect themselves from artillery. The explosions rocked the area and two shells landed to either side of them and another one almost directly behind them. That is when the screaming started as people began dyeing.

"Get up!" yelled an officer as Medea and Acacia stood up holding tight to their helmets to protect from any more artillery. Their eyes widened when they saw how far the Tau'ri had advanced in the moments that they had taken cover. "Get ready!"

With that everyone placed their rifles over the rim of the trench and prepared to fire at coming Tau'ri, however artillery bombards never come in groups of one and that is when the second wave hit. The Tau'ri artillery men had waited just long enough to get people out from under cover when the second wave hit.

**Death came in waves then as the artillery exploded above their heads, in traditional artillery which is common in movies the shell explodes upon impact with the ground.** Makes a large hole in the ground and sends people flying, that was how colonial artillery worked, that was how Cylon artillery worked but the Tau'ri had a better way.

Unlike the Colonials who hadn't fought wars against humans in almost a 100 years since before full unification the nations which now formed the Tau'ri had fought against each other and they had mastered the art of killing each other.Their shells exploded in the air, having the shell go off above ground meant that no energy was loss into the ground. It also sent shards in all directions but mostly down in a cone pattern, this meant that anyone in that cone was dead, wounded or extremely lucky.

The rain of artillery wasn't the only death coming at them from above, Condor bombers where moving into the city dropping both smart bombs and traditional dumb bombs onto the city. The condors where mostly focused on the city itself but the most dangerous weapon was about to enter the battle. High above the battle, multiple pelican transports back ramps opened to show a 30 foot long cylinders.

"Release!" yelled the drop officers onboard the multiple aircrafts as the carts containing the cylinder rolled out of the craft and released the bombs. The bombs fell through the air straight to the 3rd layer of the colonial trench lines. This line went right up to the roads which lead into the city, private houses all evacuated sat on the other side of the street from the trenches. They never stood a chance as the bombs, most of them rather old and semi dated by the new weapons of the day descended upon them.

With a roar of sound and giant fireballs filled the sky, the ground bucked as the bombs which were in truth old MOABs (Mother of All Bombs) and FOAB (Father of All Bombs) dated back to when the USA and Russia where more likely to kill each other. Their targeting systems had been upgraded but the massive explosive force was still deadly enough and the largest explosions that could be had without going nuclear. The bombs fell and caused the ground to buck kicking up dirt and sending whole concrete pillbox flying through the air like lego blocks.

**Up near the front Medea and Acacia like so many others where firing their bolt action rifles as fast as they could toward the Tau'ri. **The fifty caliber bullets the rifles fired had a horrible recoil force but against the fear of the oncoming assault the pain in the shoulder was accepted with ease. Anti-gun tanks began to open fire and before their very eyes one of the recon vehicles the Tau'ri use did go up in a fireball causing some hope in the ranks.

Then the rounds from the Tau'ri began to hit home, they opened with their own machine guns and while it didn't seem to be as powerful as their colonial counterparts they made up for that in number of rounds in the air. Whole units where being chewed up by the fire from machine guns and that was before the tanks began to open up with their main guns. The tank rounds where focused on taking down the machine guns, being inside thick reinforced concrete pillboxes one would think they would be safe. They were wrong as they went up either in the form of explosions from tank shells or by beams of light which shot forward from the larger tanks.

"They are about to reach the water trenches that should slow them down." said Acacia as the first Tau'ri tank reached the formally water filled trench. The trench was dug at such an slop it was thought and backed up by computer simulation that said any tank or any vehicle would get stuck in it. The first Tau'ri tank went down into it only to come out the other end having not even slowed down.

"By the Lords of Kobol." said Medea

"We need anti-tank forces up here now! Do you hear me?"" yelled an officer into a field telephone which ran back to a central command area by a solid landline. The land line was more secure and more reliable then wireless broadcast however considering the first place that the Tau'ri had hit was the main central command center it was overall pointless. Add to that that multiple shells had cut the lines. The colonials now had only two ways to contact each other, wireless broadcasts which could be intercepted or jammed by the Tau'ri or runners which were extremely slow.

Medea and Acacia like so many others were firing their rifles when suddenly a dark shadow fell over them all. The looked up there rising up from behind the advancing Tau'ri was a shape, it rose higher and higher until it began to take on the appearance of a figure. It stood over a hundred feet tall and was dressed in black robes, the robes where torn and covered with dirt. The black hood covered the back and top of his head but the face was clearly visible, it was bone white because it was a fleshless skull with red glowing eyes.

"It's Kharon!" yelled someone nearby as the two girls looked at the figure. It didn't look like the boatman from the river Styx who would take the dead to the underworld, Kharon was supposed to have flesh and hold a ferryman's pole. This thing had no flesh and in its hands, was a giant scythe.

"I have come for you." It said as it pointed toward the colonial line, all over the line the soldiers began to fire at the creature as it raised its scythe high and prepared to swing. Cannon shells, gunfire and even missile fire all had no effect on it. With the shift of fire the Tau'ri where able to advance with even greater ease.

**A few hundred yards behind the advancing Tau'ri line onboard some specially modified APC, where large holographic projectors which were busy projecting the image up and out so that the Colonials could see it. **

"It's working, they are shooting at it instead of our own men." reported the officer in charge of the little ploy.

"Well if I saw the Grim Reaper coming for me I would shot at it." admitted the man operating the projector. "It would be kind of funny if we put on something else? I have some clips from TV shows or movies? How about we put on Peter Griffin or I have some videos from Robot Chicken on my computer that will confuse the Colonials."

"Let's keep with the Grim Reaper." stated the officer.

**Above the battlefield the power of the Tau'ri air was being felt as the Osprey ground attack aircraft made low attack runs on the Colonial trench lines. **With their wings full of missiles and bombs and with their massive chain cannon built into their nose they were the able to bring death to the colonials. The Ospreys hadn't been used against the Colonials before the invasion and the Osprey pilots were about to make their bones by killing as many colonials as possible.

The Ospreys weren't the only aircraft in the fight, flying at different locations across the battlefield so that they wouldn't hit each other where modified Pelican transports who had been transformed into gunships akin to the AC-130. They were armed with even larger guns then the Ospreys and could fill a football size area with bullet holes two inches apart from each other within minutes and they had twin rail guns the equal to the ones on a Daedalus class cruiser. Their fire was tearing apart the colonial defenses across their assigned target area.

Providing even closer cover for the attacking force were Adder attack helicopters, they were still called helicopters even though they didn't have rotating blades of any kind and instead relied on powerful jet engines located in twin side mounted pods behind and above the cockpit. They had missiles and machine guns which made the colonial day even worse as the Tau'ri pushed forward.

**Near the front Jager's tank was among the first to reach the first trench line, he was searching the area for any sign for any targets.** The loader was remoting operating the machine gun on top of the turret while waiting to load a shell into the main gun, he had two semi ready one an armored piercing sabot and the other a high explosive round. His gunner was doing the same thing rotating the turret to use the built in fixed machine gun located on the side of the barrel. The aircraft and artillery where destroying all the targets worthily of the main gun.

"We have a trench coming up!" yelled Private Spiro from down in the bottom front of the tank.

"Keep moving we will cross it." ordered Jager as the Leopard tank lowered a bit as the front of the tank went into the trench but the line was so narrow that the front of the tank hit the other side before it could drop down that far. As they passed the machine guns fired down the trench lines forcing those inside to take cover. The 6 wheeled Courage APC had no real trouble crossing the trench however the Pumas who only had four wheels had some slight issues but they were designed to climb out of trenches with their thick tires. As they passed the infantry dropped down into the trench system and the war became up close and very personal.

Here the colonial main weapon was the bolt action rifle the Sarri was almost 45 inches long and had a six-inch bayonet which shot out using compressed air. Some of them did have the shorter 35in Doru assault rifle and there some shotguns spread out among the lines and every officer had a pistol and most enlisted had their own pistol but it wasn't standard. They bought their own. They had steel helmets and bullet proof vests with olive green battle uniforms under it all. Against Cylon they knew from the war they were well-armed but compared to the Tau'ri they were in trouble.

Coming in after them where the Tau'ri infantry, all of them had power armor on and wore full visor helmets which gave them a full tactical display including life sign detectors and the position of nearby friendly units. They came in carrying four general weapons, either the SIR 15, Standard Infantry Rifle 15 which was looked like a cross between a G36 assault rifle and an M4 carbine, since the length of the weapon was 32in it allowed for tighter turns inside the trenches then the longer colonial rifle. Another weapon brought down was the shotgun, but not just a normal shotgun an advanced tactical version of the Tel-Tec KSG shotgun. It was small and tight but still contained 16 shotgun shells. The other weapon to enter the fight on the Tau'ri side was Vector IV carbine which allowed them to operate in extremely tight areas which was common in the trench lines. The last weapon was a modernized version of the old 1911 pistol which had made a comeback against the wraith which didn't stay down with only 9mm rounds but 45mm tended to do the trick. It came down to something very simple, the Colonial weapons where designed to take down Cylons while the Tau'ri weapons where designed to take down humans.

As the Tau'ri dropped down in the trenches they came into contact with the colonials, the first time they meet the differences in weapons became clear as the colonials with their longer weapons took more time to bring them up into the fight then the Tau'ri did. Since they could point their weapons down range before the colonials could they could shoot them first. It was a blood bath as the colonials tried to work their bolt action rifles however they couldn't work it as fast as the Tau'ri could pull the trigger or load another 25 round magazines into their weapons.

Screams filled the air as some colonials tried to bayonet charge the Tau'ri, most of them died where they stood and of the few who got close tried to spear the Tau'ri with their bayonets. A handful actually accomplished their goal, the compressed air fired bayonet was extremely powerful. The bayonet smashed through the metal frame of the Tau'ri power armor and the body armor to pierce flesh and bone. Some of the Colonials even speared the helmet of an unlikely Tau'ri as the bayonet went through their visor helmet and the front of their faces before striking the brain killing them. Those where gruesome but few, more often any Colonial who got in close learned that a punch from a man or woman in a power armor could break bones with ease.

"Fall back!" yelled an officer as Medea and Acacia along with so many others moved down one of the trenches which linked the front trench to the middle trench. It had twists and turns with small bunkers at the end with machine gun nests to stop advancing Cylons in the first war and now Tau'ri. Those bunkers were supposed to hold off enemies, they did their job somewhat. The Tau'ri couldn't go running down the trench into a hail of machine gun fire. So they had to stop but thanks to cameras mounted to the barrel of their guns they were able to shoot around corners and using grenade launchers able to knock out the nests. They also had Cerberus Battle armor which was designed to go where tanks couldn't. They had shields designed to stop bullets and some low level anti-armor weapons, the shield was more than capable of stopping machine gun bullets even with the anti-clyon exploding rounds. It was able to carry heavy machine guns with ease or even grenade launchers normally mounted on vehicles. The Tau'ri kept marching forward with the colonials doing nothing more than slow them down.

**Inside the city, Lee Adama held his pistol close to him as he entered an office building, the sound of gunfire and explosions could be heard everywhere. **He had bolted from his downed Viper and had made it to this building hoping to find a colonial unit of some kind. He was semi-luckily while he hadn't come across a colonial military unit he had ran into a police tactical unit which were better armed then he was.

"You that viper pilot?" inquired the Lieutenant in command of the police force.

"Yes." confirmed Lee "What is the situation down here?"

"A fraken mess." stated another officer "We have reports of Tau'ri everywhere and we have no idea what is going on outside on the line."

"The lines have either broken or on the verge." stated Lee as he remembered seeing the battle which had waged around the trench lines. "This city has all but fallen."

"You recommend we run?" inquired one of the cops.

"No, we need to fall back and reform so that we can better able to fight." explained Lee, it was a sound tactical move and what most Tau'ri military advisors would recommend if the situation was reverse. The cops didn't want to fall back to abounded the city they were sworn to protect.

"We will never leave, we have protected this city from the worse criminals imaginable we will not leave it to the Tau'ri." stated a cop

"Do your criminals have tanks? Aircraft and have warships in orbit?" inquired Lee as the cops glared at him.

"You go if you want, we are going to fight." stated the police officer as they moved off toward the sound of gunfire which was coming from the upper floors. Lee paused for a moment and thought about what he should do before following the officers up the stairs, he had waited too long and it took him a while to reach them. He turned the corner on the fourth floor only to see them at the end of the hallway. He was about to call out to them when suddenly the ceiling above them blew open causing them to fly apart.

"What the frak!" yelled Lee as bullets began raining down on the police from the upper floor. The police had been caught lining up to take the stairs up to the roof when the bomb exploded. The effects where horrifying as most went down and those still alive had to deal with the bullets. Two members of the squad where far enough back to avoid the blasé and they returned fire but the Tau'ri above them seemed to know where they were and fired down with ease. The first went down quickly causing the last cop to pull back as he did he fired up into the ceiling hoping to hit something out of blind luck. Then he got hit in the front as a Tau'ri came out of the door leading to the roof. Lee saw it all from his position at the end of the hall, a squad of tactical police removed within moments. He lifted his pistol and pulled the trigger popping off a few rounds at the Tau'ri just to pause them for a moment as he made a run down the stairs. He was about to run out the front doors into the streets but thinking the better of it, he moved out of a side door and into an ally way. He raised his pistol up toward the roof incase a Tau'ri solider appeared to fire down on him.

He moved into another building only to find a bloodbath, marines had died after a firefight against an unknown number of Tau'ri. It had ended when a grenade had gone off killing the Colonial marines, their bodies had been torn apart by the blast. Lee didn't have time to fully process the bloodbath, instead he reached down and took an assault rifle from a dead marine and quickly grabbed some ammo before heading away from where he knew the Tau'ri where and making a course that would take him out of the city.

**President Richard Adar's Raptor landed on Raptor pad outside of the Colonial military command on Cancercon. **The moment he stepped off the raptor he was swarmed by high ranking members of the Quorum. They all started talking at the same time so the President couldn't make out a word of it.

"One at a time." ordered President Adar as the Quorum members finally stopped talking, Adar turned to the member of Tauron.

"Sir, we need to retake Tauron it is the heart of our military." stated the former solider turned Quorum member.

"And Sagittaron is the heart of the faith, we need it back as well." stated the member from that world.

"Sir." said a military aid as he stepped forward.

"What?" inquired Adar

"We have just gotten word that the Sectary of State was touring one of the battlestars over Libra when it exploded." Explained the aid "We have also lost contact with some of the lower members of Cabinet and Quorum members."

"Not good." Confirmed Adar before looking at the Quorum members with him. "We will decide what to do, but in the mean time we will announce that we will reclaim all lost land and we will never surrender to Tau'ri demands. We have faced dark days in the past we will make it through this, as long we stay together."

**Even from across the narrow ocean that separated the land mass Secretary Cain could see smoke rising on the opposite side. **It filled her with both anger, fear and some hope none of that smoke came from mushroom clouds which meant that line hadn't been crossed yet and that meant the colonials where still in the fight. There was no way that the Tau'ri could finish off the Colonial military without the use of nuclear weapons on the surface.

"Secretary Cain, General come with me." said a man in civilian clothes as he led them across the training field toward one of the many hangers. The training field was used for overflow and as a place to repair damaged craft or bring mothball vipers and raptors to combat readiness. It also hid a secondary command center. Inside of hiding underground which could be found with ground penetrating Dradis systems the command center was inside the hanger. The protection came from being hidden not from being underground.

When they entered the expected to find multiple people calling out reports about the advancement of colonial forces, instead a sense of gloom hung in the air.

"How bad?" inquired Cain

"Madam, General." Said the highest ranking officer in the room, he paused for a moment as if he was searching for the right words. "The situation is not as we hoped it would be."

"How is the advancement going form Lezbha?" inquired the General

"General it isn't." stated the officer as the General blinked not fully understanding the news. "The Tau'ri have stopped the advanced and are currently fighting their way into the city, we expect them to have the city within the next few hours at most."

"Lezbha is rung with defenses how could it be falling?" inquired the General

"Sir, the Tau'ri forces are hitting it from all three side." stated the officer as he guided the General to a map table. The map showed the known Colonial units and the known Tau'ri positions, there were also multiple red marks spread across the table. Having been in the military herself, Cain knew that those red marks where for units that had been whipped out.

"How could they be hitting them from three sides?" stated the General "It would take half the day for armored units to reach Lezbha from the landing zones."

"General we have multiple confirmed reports, the Tau'ri are moving at speeds we never thought possible for military units." stated another aid, this one a woman who looked as defeated as everyone else. "Their tanks are moving at 60 to 70 mph, their APCs break 80 mph and their recon vehicles have been spotted going over 100 mph."

"Then how can their infantry keep up?" inquired Cain

"They all seem mounted and there are a lot of them." Explained the officer "Armored units in the hundreds of tanks are rolling across the plans, crushing everything we can throw at them."

"What about our forces in orbit why aren't they firing down on them?" Inquired Cain "What is the status on the counter attack? What is the status of the Colonial Navy?"

Everyone of the officers looked at each other not being the one who told a person famous for knives the bad news.

"What is the status of the Colonial Navy?" inquired Cain her voice raised in anger.

"Ma'am, there…is no colonial navy." stated the navy officer

"What?" inquired Cain as she blinked at the officer, too stunned to say more than that.

"All our ships, everyone of our ships in the system have either been withdrawn or destroyed." Stated the officer "Picon fleet command is gone, all our defenses around Caprica and Gememon are also gone. The Tau'ri own the system."

"Picon fleet command was evacuated to Scorpio ship yards but the Tau'ri controlling the system." stated Cain as she thought about it. "We will need to launch a counter attack and it will require almost all that remains of the fleet, we still outnumber them. We can gather at Scorpio and retake the system."

"Ma'am they don't just control the system." Said the officer his voice breaking. "The Scorpio shipyards are gone along with all our defenses over Sagittarian and Libran. The Tau'ri fleet control two system and seven worlds are open to bombardment from them."

"By the Lords of Kobol." Exclaimed Cain as she ran her hands through her hair wondering how this could happen. "Do we have any forces left?"

"Yes, Admiral Adama pulled his forces back to Aquaria after it became clear that holding onto Caprica and Gememon would be suicidal." stated the aid "Reports are that he managed to pull back with around 300 ships."

"If he can link with our remaining forces then we stand a chance." stated the General as Cain shook her head.

"No, 300 ships along with what forces are left in the two systems we control we don't have the number advantage." Stated Cain

"Sir, the colonial navy has lost at least 80% of its strength and most of the ships that are left are not battlestars and FTL capable ships, I wouldn't be surprised if the 300 ships Adama has are the bulk of the FTL ships we have." added the officer "Most of our fleet that remains are Phalanx class patrol ships meant to be more like cops going after smugglers and rescuing endangered craft and they have no FTL and are lightly armed and armored. The Tau'ri have more ships in this system then that and the other system seems to be swarming with cloaked ships. Sir, the Colonial Navy is out of the fight."

"Who is in command of the navy?" inquired the General

"The highest-ranking officer we know who is still alive is Admiral Adama." stated the officer "However the situation is unclear, a lot of officers were on vacation when the attack happened."

"A man who turned and ran." snapped the General "There has, to be a way, where is the President."

"Evacuated to a safe planet, not sure where but he and the Quorum has already announced that they will not give up the fight." Reported the officer

"We need to get a handle on the situation and get some order back on the battlefield." Stated the General as he studied the map. "This is Tauron and we are the best soldiers in human history I refuse to believe that we can be beaten on a fair battlefield."

"Sir we have gotten request for clarification, the Tau'ri are threatening to overrun some bases with biological and chemical weapons on them." stated an aid "Local commanders want to know what to do with them if the Tau'ri are overrun the base?"

**Out on the battlefield everything was chaotic as Acacia and Medea like so many other Colonial soldiers ran for their lives down the trench system that was supposed to protect them. **The Tau'ri where advancing on all fronts and men and women where dyeing, those who tried to stand and fight died.

"Keep moving!" yelled Medea to Acacia as they neared the center line but that looked like it was getting hit just as hard. Suddenly a the sound of whistle filled the air.

"Who the frak is ordering a charge now?" inquired Acacia as both young girls stopped for a moment, they could just see over the line of the trench. They watched as an entire battalion of men climbed over the top of the trench with their rifles ready to fight the Tau'ri. Seven hundred men and women rushed forward with their officers in the lead. Even from this distance they could see that they wore patches showing that they were from Sagittarian and Gememon.

They charged straight forward, in front of them was at least a dozen Tau'ri tanks which stopped for a moment before with a mightily roar the caused the entire battalion to disappear in smoke caused by the firing off all the tanks main gun. Thanks to a strong wind the smoke cleared within moments and when it did there wasn't a single colonial standing. An entire battalion, 700 men and women died in the snap of a finger. The tanks stopped for a moment as if they surveying their work before they rolled on.

**The last bits of the Colonial navy over Caprica was now nothing more than wrecks floating dead in space, the civilian ships where running off world, the Tau'ri didn't try to stop them. **What was left the military attempted to fight by launching surface to space missiles but those missiles where either shot down or slammed useless against the shields. All that accomplished was having the colonials use up missiles and when they started to throw nuclear missiles up it destroyed more civilian ships than anything else. The Tau'ri fighters, fighter bombers and bombers had already begun to dive into the atmosphere the Taita fighter bomber leading the way.

The Taita was designed to fill in the role of a fast light fighter bomber but it was also designed to be a dive bomber. Only instead of diving over from a few thousand feet it could dive down from the very edge of space on inclines that would destroy almost any other ship. With the scram jet built in adding to the speed of the dive when it released its cargo a normal bomb became a bunker buster and that is what they were doing over all four colonial worlds in the system. Colonial military bases also came under fire from Galahad class destroyers which dropped into a low orbit and opened with cannons, railguns and for the larger targets they used Asgard beam weapons. Condor bombers went after military factories and the means of production. With no real threat from colonial air power the Eagles went after ground targets mostly the civilian transport ships with a strong focus on cargo transport ships.

Above the warships of the Tau'ri where spreading out across all four worlds, the only large gathering being over the battlefield of Lezbha and the landing zones. Some anti-ship missiles where launched from the surface of the different worlds but they were all useless as the Tau'ri ships moved into position.

"General, we are ready." Stated an aid onboard the Missouri as General Leong nodded her head.

"Then let us begin." Ordered general Leong as the orders went out to all ships within the system, almost as one the warships in orbit began to fire down upon the planets they were over. They fired with regular shells and Asgard beam weapons for targets on the ground. Drones where launched to take care of moving targets like viper, raptors and ground vehicles. They ignored some of the targets that they would generally go after, such as power generators and the electrical grid. This was done for two reasons, first to keep the cilivian news broadcasts up to presser the leaders into surrendering and secondly so that some key locations like hospitals and water systems stayed working for the moments. That didn't stop the Tau'ri from firing upon any factory they found, it didn't matter that much if it had much of anything to do with making war material. If it was a means of production on Caprica, Picon, Gememon or Tauron it was getting hit.

The ships firing down on the Colonial worlds weren't the only Tau'ri ships moving, having destroyed all the Colonial Navy in their first targeted system, the small fleet of Akula stealth ships exited hyperspace with a fresh colonial system right before them. Of the 40 ships which had attack the colonials worlds of Sagittarian, Scorpio and Libran destroying all their ships and stations 30 of them had made the short journey to this new system. The remaining 10 along with the cloaked Odyssey had stayed behind to make sure nothing happened and to keep an eye on the delegation down on Libran. Being cloaked none of the colonials knew that they had left the system and where now moving toward the colonial manufacturing base at Canceron and the agriculture world of Aerilon, the other formally habitual world was Aquaria.

"What is the current situation of the Colonial Navy in the system?" inquired Captain Ramius since the Daedalus was back in the other system, he was in sole command of this operation.

"Sir we have what we expected to find over Canceron and Aerilon however we have an additional 329 colonial warships including the large Battlestars and multiple cruisers and destroyers over Aquaria." Stated the radar operator.

"That is unexpected." stated Ramius as he got onto the radio and quickly contacted command back on the Missouri. After talking for a few moments he got the answer. "Turns out that the Colonial Navy didn't stand and fight for Caprica and Gememon like they thought they would. They must have fallen back to Aquaria."

"Sir, they are on the far side of the system, we could hit them and then come around and take out the defenses around the planets." Advised his second in command, a talented young officer from Langaran. "I would advised separating our force into two groups but then we will not pack a big enough punch in our opening moments."

"Agreed." confirmed Ramius as he decided to test his young officer, he had trained multiple Russian submarine officers during his years in the navy. Now he was doing it for space battle and for the 1st time a woman and a woman who was born on another planet. "Tell me what you want to do?"

The young officer studied the map for a moment.

"The colonial navy, has run in the recent past there is no reason to think that they wouldn't again." Stated the officer "And our main goal is to remove Canceron and Aerilon out of the fight, we also don't have the ammo to do both. Our first goal should be to destroy the defenses around our main targets."

"On the surface I would agree and if we follow our orders to the letter you would be correct but we have a rare operating here." Stated Ramius "Look at the defenses around Canceron and Aerilon, those defenses all lack FTL and are therefore stuck in the system unlike the Colonial fleet, and look where what remains of Aquaria is?"

The officer studied the map and noticed that Aquaria was almost in line with a gas giant called Hestia. It had 17 moons which ranged from about half the size of Earth's moon to just bigger then it. In between where countless smaller asteroids until they basically formed a ring like Saturn.

"We can move five or six ships into the asteroid belt around Hestia and they could move into the belt and fire into the edges of the Colonial forces." Said the officer "They would have to decloak to protect themselves from asteroids but with so many in that belt the colonials will not notice the addition of five or six more."

"True, however this field gives us retreat position." stated Ramius as a light went off inside the officer's mind.

"We have ships spread out behind the force and then head straight toward them." stated the officer "They decloak right on the edge of the fleet and raise their shields, using beam weapons to save on nuclear warheads they carry out an attack run through the heart of the fleet and then they use Hestia to protect themselves from enemy fire and to lose any viper or raptor tale before cloaking again."

"Very good, send the order." ordered Ramius "When we are position we will attack."

**In a totally different system President Adar stood watching the destruction of the four worlds with three more just waiting to be attack.** They watched as colonial forces where being beaten like a toddler going up against a professional boxer. Even some ceremonial forces like the sea navy of Picon where being destroyed. The President watched on live TV as one of the old Picon Sea Navy Warship slipped below the waves in Queenstown's harbor when glowing blue Tau'ri drones smashed into it. Caprica City, which was still being rebuilt from the last Tau'ri attack was now open and Gememon was getting pounded by fire. Tauron who already had problems with an Tau'ri ground assault now had to deal with the same fire from above as the other worlds on top of the unbelievable speed of the Tau'ri military.

All around him his aids, political advisors and some senior Quorum members where watching wondering what to really do, the military seamed helpless with no real options and while some reports on the home front where lukewarm good such as the reports of massive amounts of people turning out to take up arms on Sagittarian other news was far from good like the number of people calling for peace on Libran. It was a strange twist, Sagittarian was known to stand against the central government and Libran was strongly for it, but now it was the opposite. Scorpio was also in danger but from another reason, all the remains of the shipyards had surrounded the planet forming a basically cloud of remains that could damage ships and the larger pieces were threats to the planet itself.

"Sir, the Tau'ri have just sent another request for surrender we have one hour if we do not accept their terms of unconditional surrender they will move on to the next step of this war." Stated an aid

"What more could they do?" inquired Adar "Short of nuclear weapons they can't do anything worse then what they are doing now."

"Sir." Stated a military officer "Sir, basically we are beaten in space but we can hold onto the planets. We can drag this out make them try to occupy our worlds. They would fail to even hold Tauron and I would love to see them try to hold Sagittaron."

"Maybe we can offer them a short of cease fire, we can join together to destroy the Cylons they are a threat to all humanity and a sin against the Lords of Kobol." Stated a membered of the Quorum from Caprica

"I agree." Confirmed the Sagittarian member

"And how would you convince them to do that?" countered the Libran Quorum member "Mr. President, this war is over we have to accept that it is over. We loss and you say what will the Tau'ri do to us, they could nuke us and with no way for us to strike back why wouldn't they. We have to surrender to save our people, we have to end this."

"And give up Kobol!" yelled the Sagittaron member "Never, we can still win!"

"No we can't!" yelled the Libran member "We have lost, every moment man and women are dyeing for nothing and…"

"They are dying because it is the will of the Lords of Kobol." Stated the Gememon member, the Libran member simply glared at them before storming out.

"Sir, it may be wise to declare military law over the 12 colonies until the Tau'ri threat has been pushed out of the systems." stated a member from Scorpio.

"That may be for the best." Confirmed the member from Cancercon as Adar nodded his head.

"Sir, we may have a plan to strike back at the Tau'ri but you aren't going to like it." Said an military aid as he slid a piece of paper to the President.

"You have to be joking." said President Adar "There has to be another way."

"Sir our Navy is now all but gone and worthless, the best way to strike back is by having what few ships we have left jump over the Tau'ri invasion sites and as they fall toward the surface they can launch vipers and fire what ammo they have left." stated the aid

"And then jump away?" inquired a member from Scorpio

"No, then they basically become bombs themselves." Stated the aid "They would hit with the force of a small to medium size asteroid."

"I want better options." Ordered the President

"Sir, we don't have many options left." Countered the military aid. "Command and control is becoming a major issue, the Tau'ri are moving so fast that we are having trouble organizing movement of our forces and it is only a matter of time until something goes wrong. Some commanders are already asking if they should use WMDs."

"By the Lords of Kobol, no." stated the President

"Sir, we may need to reconsider that stance and besides what option do we have, if the Tau'ri overrun positions we may soon find ourselves with no WMDs." Advised the military officer

"We need to show the Tau'ri our resolve!" yelled the Sagittarian member "We must show them that they will never win, we will never give up and we will do whatever is needed. Sir unleash those weapons and show them the wraith of the Lords of Kobol."

"Mr. President, that would be a mistake." added the member from Virgon "I agree with Libran who left, we have lost the war but we can use the threat these WMDs to make a better peace deal and besides what happens if we should fail, our cities will be destroyed."

"They are already being destroyed by Tau'ri fire, how does death from a single nuclear blow differ all that much from death from thousands of regular shells." Countered the member from Gememon. "Mr. President order our commanders to use the weapons."

Adar took a deep breath and after a quick prayer told the council his answer that would decide the fate of the Colonies and millions of people.

**Well I am back and I had a fun time at the bachelor party and aside from the weather being strange the wedding was great as well. The day before the wedding it was almost 70 and the day of the wedding it was snowing. Well that is the weather in Ohio. Now I hope you enjoyed this chapter and until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	73. Chapter 73

**Chapter 73 Announcements**

Around what remained of Aquaria the bulk of what remained of the Colonial Navy FTL capable ships where gathered under Admiral Adama. He had just to look around at his command to see how bad it was, he had a mix group of ships from every colonial fleet, with beside his one battlestar he only had 21 others in a force of over 300 ships. The rest of the fleet was made up of destroyers, cruisers and smaller pocket battlestars which was meant to fill in duty for a larger battlestar but lacked firepower and armor.

"Sir." Said an aid as he handed Adama a print out of the status of the fleet.

"The fleet is combat ready, isn't it?" inquired Colonel Saul as Adama nodded his head toward his old friend. "So where are we going?"

"Depends where do you want to die?" inquired Adama as he looked at the command table in the CIC, he was beyond the point of even caring about letting the crew know how bad it was. They could see that for themselves, they were in system and as such they could pick up wireless broadcasts coming from multiple news serves. None of the news was good, Caprica, Gemmemon and Picon where under fire from orbit. Tauron had the same fate in addition they had Tau'ri ground forces which was overrunning the colonial positions at every turn. Places that had held out for months under Cylon attack had fallen within hours. Places that had never been taken had been taken, the Tau'ri where fighting this war in a very different way and it was teaching the colonials a very bloody lesson.

"The Tau'ri control two systems and their ground forces advance on Tauron." stated Saul "Any word from high command?"

"They pulled back to Scorpio shipyards when the Tau'ri attacked Tauron." explained Adama "And the shipyards are destroyed."

"Which means even if somehow we are able to push the Tau'ri out we have no real way to rebuild our fleet." stated Saul "The smaller ship yards around the other worlds aren't capable of building battlestars and even so for the 1st time in this war, they outnumber us when it comes to ships."

"Not even the Clyons outnumbered us in ships, it came close but we always had them on that front." Countered Adama with the shake of his head. "The Tau'ri have torn us apart piece by piece and we are running out of pieces."

"I just don't understand the Tau'ri plan, they can't possibly think that they can occupy Tauron or any other world then what is their end game?" inquired Saul

"It is very clear what their plans are." stated Adama "They are putting on a show."

"Putting on a show?" inquired Saul not fully understanding.

"Yes, if you noticed they are stepping up their attacks against us and at each point they are offer us a chance to give up and then they hit us with something new." Stated Adama

"For who the Cylons?" inquired Saul as Adama shook his head.

"No, they may be ahead of us in technology but they are no threat to the Tau'ri." said Adama with a heavy heart, he had detected most of his life to the colonial military. His marriage had likely fallen apart because of it and his estrangement from his only living son was likely because of it as well. Yet he knew that the Colonial Military, who had thousands of ships and millions of men and women in arms where nothing more than a punching bag. "They are putting on a show for the other powers in the Galaxy, the ones that are a threat to them. We are a live fire training field for new weapons and ships, we are nothing more than a punching bag that can punch back and a demonstration so that other powers will fear them."

"Then if they are testing weapons on us then what do you think their final weapon is?" inquired Saul "What will they do if we don't surrender?"

"I don't know." Admitted Adama "The Tau'ri just seem to have weapons and technology that we could never dream of. What weapon is their final weapon is something even the Lords of Kobol themselves would likely run in fear from."

**The colonial forces where in full retreat from the defense line around Lezbha as the Tau'ri sent them running into the city itself.** The withdraw from what remained of the 3 ring trench lines was nothing short of a chaos, some units decided that unless they had orders to actually fell back that they would hold the line while others gripped by fear or realizing that it was loss retreated into city. The units that stayed behind to fight where mostly made up of members form Sagittarian, Gememon and Tauron. The reasons why soldiers from those three worlds where more likely to stand their ground was because of two reasons, for the Sagittarians and Gememon soldiers it was because of the strong religious elements engraved into the culture of those worlds. For the soldiers native of Tauron the reason was because this was their home and in some cases they were fighting for their own city.

In their way the units that did stand and fight did accomplish one thing as they tried to stop the tide of Tau'ri was to buy those pulling back a few extra minutes to escape. Not that they had anywhere else to go the city of Lezbha as surrounded and being attack on three sides with the 4th side opening to an open stretch of land which was in fact in a pocket surrounded by the Tau'ri on three sides and a small sea, they were trapped. None of the soldiers running for their lives knew that, they just knew that only one direction currently didn't have any Tau'ri and so they went that way. To get out of the city, they had to get through the city which was currently under siege. Tau'ri special forces where fighting inside the city and their main military base was now a point of entry for Tau'ri forces.

Among the mass of soldiers running for their lives where two young women from Libra who where running for their lives, they ran into a warzone to escape a Tau'ri steal. The city was alight in flames as fires raged uncontrollably through the city, smoke turned the noon sky into a twilight haze. For one of the first times the Tau'ri armor stopped, this action was to allow the infantry still pushing through the trenches to move up. A tank moving into a city, even a city like Lezbha which had wide streets and low buildings with only a handful breaking 6 stories was still not a place for armor to go in alone. It would be too easy for infantry hiding in buildings to come up behind a tank with an explosive charge.

The slight pause allowed the Colonials to rush into the buildings but they still had no organization and while some the Colonials tried to form a new defense line inside the first couple of homes others kept running. Those who tried to form a defense line inside the first couple of homes began shooting back but at the line of Tau'ri tanks. The tanks responded in kind as high explosive shells came calling and when they did only the lucky few in the homes where still alive at the end. Just like on Earth and other worlds settled by the Tau'ri the bulk of the residential buildings here where made from wood with plastic siding, with slightly higher than average number with brick sides. Either way they caught fire feeding the smoke which filled the sky.

The smoke didn't affect the Tau'ri infantry their fully visor helmet had vision enhancements built in which cut through the smoke. The infantry began to move into the homes, with life sign detectors they could sweep through buildings with a semi ease. The Tau'ri could by pass buildings that they knew where empty or send in a small team and with the detectors they could know generally what they were facing when they heading into a building. It also helped that the Tau'ri had trained up on clearing cities, the history of blood city fighting which ranged from Stalingrad to Fallujah they knew the city fighting was hell.

Multiple squads had spread out as they moved to take the outlying neighborhoods, they would approach a house and line up beside the front door or another entry point. Two infantry fireteam of 4 to 6 men moved toward a two-story brick house, the colonial flag flew outside on the pouch. It reminded the Americans in the squad of something from her neighborhood outside of Denver. They lined up on the door in two groups one to sweep the home the other to be a backup in case they ran into trouble. With the life sign detector, they knew that there was six people inside and they even knew that the general lay out of the room and the location of the people in the house. With a nod of the head one of them smashed in a small window in the door before throwing in a grenade. The grenade exploded causing five blips to disappear as they stormed the house the colonial soldiers who were held up inside fell. A single burst killed the last one clearing the house.

"Clear!" yelled one of them as they doublechecked the house. Other teams were searching the other homes and clearing them out of colonials. As they did they Tau'ri moved into the city, the tanks and other vehicles moved forward using their heavier weapons to support the infantry. Air cover also moved forward being down firepower against dug in targets that the ground forces couldn't reach yet.

**One of the main targets of the air power and artillery was a colonial artillery and infantry strong point located inside a park.** With bombs falling on them and shells raining from the sky the colonial artillery men had been knocked out of the fight early and had spent most of the time taking cover within their blast resistance bunkers. Even down in the bunkers they were not safe as using Taita fighter bombers the Tau'ri dropped bombs capable of reaching the artillery men in their bunkers. The Tau'ri had to be careful because on either side of the firebase was two schools one a high school the other an elementary school. It was also the place where the Colonials had built in their civilian bunkers. Wanting to get the civilians out of the combat zone and to take the colonial guns out of the fight it was a major objective for the Tau'ri ground forces. It was also the main route which lead toward the now captured colonial air base.

The Colonials where so unstable and disorganized that they didn't put up an organized fight allowing the Tau'ri convoy to reach the high school without even have to go around any roadblocks or stopping to knock out a strong point. They rolled into the parking lot of the school, having APCs stop in the same spots that school buses would normally use. The Tau'ri forces ran out of the back ramps of the APCs and moved into the school. Since the schools where so far behind the lines that the colonial military planners couldn't imagine that the defense lines would break before they had time to evacuate the civilians, the only defenders where a less than a dozen cops most of them rookies to keep order.

"What the frak!" yelled one of the cops as he spotted a Tau'ri solider turn the corner in a locker lined hallway. He raised his weapon but was shot down with ease. Screams came from the gym as the civilians heard the nearby gun shot, then with a burst the Tau'ri came in with gun raised. Screams filled the air as parents moved to protect shield their kids from what they believed to be oncoming death. During the Cylon war, the Cylon centurions would mow down captured civilians with machine gun fire. Unknown to the Tau'ri among the people was a news crew which was recording them, seeing the arrival of the news team made that the live broadcast. The people in the news room expected them to broadcast the death of the civilians by the hands of the Tau'ri.

Among the Tau'ri none of them pulled the trigger but they were ready to fire as they scanned the screaming civilians for any threats.

"We aren't going to hurt you!" yelled one of the Tau'ri as he lowered his rifle just a bit while the others were still ready to fire. "Just stay where you are and follow directions."

**Outside the school, Jager and a column of Leopard III tanks where moving to take the firebase and to push on to take the elementary school and to link up with their forces holding the airbase.** They moved forward infantry men were climbing the earthen rampart which marked the base. The colonial field guns where for the most part knocked over and destroyed one of them was still had the barrel pointed over the earthen rampart. When the infantry was nearing the top a colonial solider popped up with a shoulder mounted rocket in his hands. He fired as the rocket flew and slammed into Jager's Leopard tank. The blow hit the battle skirt which was attached to the sides of the tank to protect the treads. Even so the blow hit just right to knock out the tread and cause the tank to come to a stop. The tank rolled to a stop as Private Spiro and the other members of the crew cursed as the colonial solider was shot dead by the Tau'ri.

"Shit, sir we are stuck." reported Private Spiro in the diver compartment "Other than that we seem to be fine."

"This is Jager, we are knocked out." Reported Jager to the column and the rest of his command. He looked at the computer screen and saw that the tank tread was knocked off. Aside from that he the tank appeared operational. "Just a knocked tread but we are stuck here. We will stay to protect the school and hold the position."

"I'll assume command." said a second voice as the rest of the tank column moved forward leaving the disabled tank behind.

**Onboard the Missouri General Leong moved into her onboard office, in truth it was the office of the ships commanding officer but for the moment it was her office. **She placed the computer pad onto the wooden desk before sitting down behind it. She closed her eyes for a moment, she knew she needed a nap but it was also true that she was having the time of her life. She had spent years preparing for this and now the final act of all her and other officers planning was about to reach its peak.

She opened her eyes again and tapped a small half circle which sat on the desk, within moments a holographic image of General O'Neill who was sitting behind a desk on Earth appeared before her. The General looked old, he was old 72 and having spent most of those years without the new medical benefits that where coming from the gate. His generation would be the last with an average life span below a 100 most experts agreed. The young men and women fighting the war would likely see their 120th or later birthdays.

"General Leong." greeted the Supreme Commander of all Tau'ri forces "How are things going?"

"General O'Neill, I am sure you have seen the same reports and the video coming out from the battlefield." stated General Leong as she saluted the American General, even though he was officially an American General she had nothing but respect for him, he was a hero even in her eyes just as he was in the eyes of every Tau'ri. "The situation is as we expected, the Colonials are at the end of their rope and that rope is on fire."

"Good, however I can't help but think of that old saying that a cornered animal is the most dangerous animal." countered General O'Neill

"I agree and we believe that the colonials will take one of three moves." explained General Leong "They will either attempt suicidal attacks with ships and men against our ground forces, they have learned that our shields can stop them and they have only a handful of ships left. The second option is that they will attempt to either use or threaten to use WMDs against us."

"That is the one I am most concern about." admitted O'Neill

"I am worried about that as well General however we have taken steps to protect ourselves against a nuclear strike and we are also prepared for biological and chemical attacks." Stated General Leong "The issue is how do we respond if they threaten nuclear strike."

Both of them knew what the counter plan was for if they carried out a successful nuclear strike, multiple horizon V missile systems each armed with 12 mark IX nuclear weapons were on standby to be deployed first on Gememon and then Sagittarian. As the hotbed of the religious fury that was driving the war they would feel the blow with more strike to follow if need be.

"Sir, if you want to end this war before we have to deploy multiple horizon missile systems we are in a position that we can deploy the Ragnarok." stated General Leong as O'Neill shifted uncomfortable in his seat. The Ragnarok was the first and so far, only ship in her class and was something thing that O'Neill wished had never been built. That ship was the final option, if the colonials refused to surrender then the Ragnarok would end them.

"She and her escorts are currently sitting on the edge of colonial space and can arrive and be ready to deploy in under ten minutes." stated General Leong "Without any ground forces shooting at her, the Ragnarok can deploy with ease and without any threat to her systems. If we show them that this war is over and how outgunned they are it may end this or at least push planets to break off and sue of piece. We may not be able to save all their worlds from themselves but we can save some of them."

"I will speak to the President about this but at the moment we may demonstrate our final option can you deploy her over a target and put her on standby?" inquired General O'Neill as General Leong nodded her head.

"I can, if I recommend Caprica City." stated General Leong as the Capital Caprica City was full of symbols of colonial strength and culture. Destroying it would have the same effect on the colonial spirit as if New York would have on Americans or Beijing would have for Chinese. It would be a sign that they had lost.

"Very well." ordered O'Neill "I will clear it with the President but she is growing tired of this and the cost of this war is just going up in lives."

Under the charter that formed the Tau'ri the office of the President of the Tau'ri rotated between the big 8 powers every 4 years. The US president held the first chair for two years before the announcement of the alliance and the office had transferred in the middle of the war. The current person holding the office of the President of the Tau'ri was the Brazilian President. That was one thing already being discussed about changing the charter to make it a popular vote of the citizens of all Tau'ri worlds but that to be decided later.

"You said there was a third option?" inquired General O'Neill

"In truth, there are four but one of them is laughable that it doesn't really deserve mention." stated General Leong "That is that will try to make a bargain of some kind with us to pause the war and fight someone else, like the wraith or the Cylons."

General O'Neill chuckled at that.

"I think some Confederate envoy tried to do that in the later day of the Civil War to go to war with a European power, I forget which that had taken over Mexico." laughed O'Neill "And I assume that the last option is that the Colonials surrender?"

"That or they break up into multiple smaller worlds." stated General Leong "And we have plans for that."

"Yes, we do." confirmed O'Neill

"Sir, one last thing." stated General Leong "We have gotten a request form the Cylons, they want us to rescue one Gaius Baltar from the Colonial Military Prison on Caprica."

"Can it be done?" inquired O'Neill

"Easily, however they want us to make it look like the colonials did it." Stated General Leong with a shrug "The Cylons have plans for him after the war, from our reports he loves one of the humanoid cylons."

"I see." Said General O'Neill "Well they have a larger interest in the colonies then we do, and if this Baltar does rise to something important in whatever government forms after the fall they would have something a kin of the first lady being a soviet spy in the cold war."

"And they have been very helpful to us." added General Leong "They have give us the location of every colonial nuclear storage site and other important intelligence."

"Then we owe it to them." admitted General O'Neill "Approved, get this Baltar out and make it look like it we had nothing to do with it."

**To the South of Hypatia the a combined front made up of mostly American Army and Marines pushed south from the capital city of Tauron, extending out the holdings of the Tau'ri on the world. **This column was the closest to the city compared to the other columns spreading out from the landing zones. This was mostly because the column had two issues which limited the speed of the advance, first was that they had to move through a city and cross a river to reach the lines. The second issue was that unlike the other advancing columns, the Americans where fighting through some of the most built up areas because of the large cities which had grown up around the capital and had filled in until it was hard to see where one city ended and another began.

Fighting on the front lines since he had landed to take the bridge was Private Torren Sheppard, he was taking over a half destroyed wall when a runner came up to his position. Over the roar a Leopard tank firing into a nearby building the runner tapped him on his shoulder causing him to duck down from firing at the Colonial position.

"Private Shepard?" inquired the runner

"Yes!" yelled Shepard back as the colonials trapped in the house kept up the fire on the Tau'ri.

"Orders from command, you have been on the line since the landing you are ordered to take a rest." Reported the runner. Torren was about to complain saying that it wasn't fair that he was being ordered back while others he had fought with where still on the line. Then he noticed that taking cover behind the tank and a half destroyed fast food place was a truck where multiple marines in his squad where loading up in.

"Alright, they are hold up in that building and we have an airstrike coming in in a few minutes." Stated Torren as the solider nodded. With that and a burst of covering fire Torren moved back to the truck and was helped in by his fellow marines before it took off down the road away from the battle. It pasted areas that had already been cleaned out of Colonial resistance. As they pasted some colonial civilians where on the streets trying to pick up the pieces of their lives. The column roared past an older couple on their knees as cried over the body of a young woman in a colonial uniform.

"Must be her parents." said a member of his squad as he took off his helmet and breathed in the fresh air.

"She was in uniform, I feel no real sadness for them." Stated another as the truck pasted a column of colonial soldiers all with their hands on their heads marching into captivity with Tau'ri guards. "It isn't like it was a kid."

"I saw something like that earlier." Stated another over the yell of insults that were thrown at Colonial POW. "Entered a house and someone had tossed a grenade in and killed the whole family in it. A mother, a father and two little kids all dead as they hid in their kitchen."

"War is hell." Said Sheppard as the truck took an off ramp and headed toward a long line of river side restaurant/night club which normally would be full of paying customers. The truck came to a stop in front of a building which looked remarkably like a two story tall pizza hut building.

"Inside marines!" yelled an officer as Sheppard noticed the Puma recon vehicle and Cougar APC standing by ready to fight by the ramp leading down toward the parking lot. Nearby the sound of Tau'ri mortars going out meant that they were still in range of the battle but they were behind the lines. The marines entered the building to find a large dining area full of tables and chairs, a full bar took over one wall and a patio looked out over the river toward the Hypatia skyline which was still burning and smoke filled. The place was semi full but not with Colonials, instead the Tau'ri had taken over mostly US army, Marines with a handful of other Tau'ri nations as well.

Some of them where using the padded booths to get some sleep, others were sitting on the patio just enjoying themselves. Multiple load card games where going on as they used captured items like watches and rings to place bets. People where telling stories and the full bar was in full use. Even the dance floor which took up the center of the room was being used as men and women some in full battle armor minus the helmets others in BDU where dancing to music coming from an Ipod speaker system. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a man leading a laughing woman up the stairs to the second level of the bar, it didn't take much to figure out what they and whoever else was up there where doing.

Sheppard slung his rifle over his shoulder and moved toward the bar where command had brought in coolers full of drinks, mostly Gatorade and fruit drinks for people to have. A man who was happy to tell you that he had been a bartender in college at Miami was mix them with the local spirits to make cocktails. Here the war was far away and people where relaxing from the hours of combat.

Shepard didn't have to wait long for his drink, he like so many others had couldn't stand at the bar, so instead he found a booth with a still working TV attached to the wall. He was flipping through the colonial channels watching the advance on Lezbha and the bombardment of the other worlds.

"Is this seat taken?" inquired a voice as Sheppard looked up to see a woman about his age, dressed in Marine BDU, her like so many others had her helmet off her shoulder length brown and brown eyes. She had her SIR-15 rifle slung over her shoulder. Like him she was a private and so they didn't mess with rank.

"No." answered Shepard as she put the rifle down and moved to sit down. "Torren Sheppard."

"Ashley Williams." Answered the girl as she took a pull from her drink. "I would ask how your doing but it is likely the same as me?"

"Yes…have you lost anyone?" inquired Shepard

"Two men on my squad, one took a bayonet in the chest from one of those air compressed little SOB that the colonials use and the other one…the freaking commander of all things got shot in the back by a colonial kid who he had passed by thinking he was no threat." Explained Ashley "He was old enough to work a pistol. How about you?"

"Lost one to a grenade and another two lost limbs when what I assume to be a propane tank exploded near them." explained Sheppard

"Luckily they have the technology to clone them new limbs." stated Ashley before shaking her head. "Four years ago when this whole thing started I was couldn't even drive now I am fighting on a different planet. Where you?"

"I was on Atlantis." explained Torren as Ashely blinked.

"And here I was going to make a joke about asking if you were related to General Sheppard, I guess the answer is yes." stated Ashely as Torren nodded his head, before he could say anything more his attention was drawn to the TV which suddenly changed from the news from the battlefield to the news room with the woman sitting behind the desk saying that the President was about to make a speech. Ashely must have heard it as well as she smiled. "Hopefully this means the war is about to end."

While the Tau'ri was advancing new orders where being sent out by what remained of the Colonial Government and President Richard Adar was moving toward a podium, behind him was the seal of the 12 colonies of Kobol with a blue background. Behind him to his right was a priestess in full robes and a copy of the holy scrolls in her hands. To his left was a man in a colonial marine dress uniform. He looked down at his speech one last time before looking up at the cameras and the teleprompters.

"Three…two…one." Said a voice behind the camera as the red light on top of the camera turned on and his image appeared over every wireless tv station and his voice would go over the wireless channels.

"Ladies, Gentlemen, soldiers, civilians, priest and priestess of the 12 colonies of Kobol we all know the herculean struggle we are currently in against our wayward cousins." Stated President Adar as he focused on camera. Even with all the makeup put on by the media people he looked extremely tired and worn out, like death semi warm over. "Our cousins believe that they can win by bring death and destruction to our worlds but we will carry on. We will fight them and whatever they try to force on us we will stop them. When they try to occupy our worlds, we will fight them in the streets and in the fields."

Adar paused for a moment.

"We will fight on, just as we did against the Cylons. To help give us victory I am hereby informing our cousins that we will not take this anymore. You have sent a demand to surrender to you but that will not happen, instead I am going to give you a demand. If you do not stop your assault on our worlds and if you do not end this pointless war and rejoin your brothers and sister in the light of the lords of Kobol then we will unleash every weapon we have against you."

Adar paused he had just put the 12 colonies of Kobol down a path which would either save them or doom them all. It was possibly the most serious speech in the entire history colonies of Kobol. He was about to end his speech with the traditional words "So say we all" but he didn't get a chance.

"And it will not matter." Said a different voice as Adar blinked, within a few moments General Leong appeared beside him. Adar actually jumped back as he looked at the woman, at first he actually thought she was there but Adar realized that since she was actually glowing somewhat that she wasn't actually there. "You seam surprised, did you really think you got away from Scorpio and arrived her at Virgon without us knowing? We let you get away, if we wanted we could beam in a nuke and kill you all before you realized what was going on."

"Come to accept our terms." Said a voice as a member of the Quorum from Sagittarian who had been standing off screen moved forward.

General Leong rolled her eyes at the idea.

"We can destroy your planets with a single bomb killing billions of lives or we can deploy another bomb and cause one of your stars to go supernova." Stated General Leong "Or have you forgotten what we did to Aquaria?"

"We will never forget what you did to one of the worlds gifted to humanity by the Lords of Kobol." snapped the member from Gememon "And while you kill innocent civilians we will kill warriors."

"No you will not." stated General Leong "What weapons can you use? Your nuclear arsenal is all but gone and the ones you do have are stationed in planet side silos based away from Tauron. Biological and Chemical weapons are worthless as well, what does that leave you?"

"Old fashion bullets and faith." Said a priestess "When you come to our worlds and try to occupy us we will kill you with a million cuts."

"And how will you do that?" inquired General Leong "You have assumed so much about us, you assumed that we would fight this war in a way you have fought in the past. We fight with speed and firepower, we follow blitzkrieg Lightning War you march into battle with tactics which haven't been used in decades. It is almost laughable how predicable you are. You posted your battle plans publicly on how to deal with the Cylons on your version of the internet and you never changed them when this war began"

"You fight with no honor." stated a military aid

"By your standards, yes." admitted General Leong and for a moment a smile crossed the aid face. "But it is also irrelevant, we own the skies, we have crushed the colonial navy, we have pushed aside your defenses and your worlds are open to us."

"And when you try to occupy us we will win, you don't have the man power to hold us." stated the aid as the President who should have taken the lead in the discussion faded more and more into the background getting washed away in the tide.

"Your right, and like I said before you assume too much." stated General Leong

"You will use nukes and yet you condemn us for threatening you?" stated the member from Sagittarian, even though General Leong never said that they would use nukes. "The faithful will deal with your ungodsless act against them."

"Faith doesn't stand well against bullets and what we have plan." stated General Leong as she smiled slightly, a smile that caused a chill to run down the colonial spin.

"Our you can accept our terms and no one will die?" stated an aid

"And why would we do that? The choice to end this war isn't ours it is yours." countered General Leong "To help stop this we will offer the chance to surrender by a world by world bases, if the more realist worlds wish to end this we will allow them to surrender one by one."

"And they will become your puppet worlds, victims of your every whim." Stated the member from Virgon one of the worlds who was more likely to accept a peace.

"Like I said you have nothing that really interest us." Stated General Leong "If you hadn't started this war…"

"You started this war when you occupied Kobol and it will end when you rejoin the tribes of man and return Kobol." Snapped a priest.

"You can believe that until your dyeing day, which may come very soon if you don't surrender unconditionally now." stated General Leong "The worse is coming."

With that General Leong disappeared from in front of the Colonials.

Watching like so many others was the royal family of Libran and high ranking members of the Quorum from that world. They weren't alone in the palace along with them where two high ranking diplomats from the Tau'ri Doctor Woolsey and Minister Fang Gang plus two armed guards.

"What did she mean the worse is coming?" inquired the King of Libran who had powers like planetary governors on other worlds however unlike the others he had never been elected. "What could be worse?"

"We have a weapon, a weapon which will tear the colonies apart and end this war within hours." Stated Woolsey "However we have held back on using it because we don't really want to start an arms race with other powers in the galaxy by letting them know we have it."

"To end this war, we will take that risk." Stated Fang Gang as the doors at the far end of the hall flew open and four men dressed in colonial blue dress uniforms came up. They didn't seem to notice Doctor Woolsey and Fang Gang in the group, they were just two more men and suits nothing to alert them of being Tau'ri. The two armed Tau'ri guards where located behind the mass of humanity gathered around the table where the TV was located.

"We need to get you and the others to safety the President has authorized the use of biological and chemical weapons against the Tau'ri, we can expect a response." reported the head officer clearly unaware of the four Tau'ri in the room, that wouldn't last long.

"Of course we will." answered Fang Gang as the officer noticed for the first time the two armed Tau'ri guards standing across from their Libran royal counterparts. "Didn't we warn you that we would? Your president is one of the biggest fools I have seen to think that he can win that way. It only shows how weak of position he is. This war is over."

The colonial officer's eyes widened as he noticed the Tau'ri, his hand brushed the grip of his pistol when he felt a barrel pressed against the back of his head. He turned his head slightly to see that the person holding the pistol was not a Tau'ri but one of the royal guards.

"Yes, this war is over." stated the King as the Queen nodded her head in agreement. All around him the Quorum members from Libran nodded their heads in agreement, some did show hesitation but agreed anyhow. "Doctor Woolsey, if I remember your terms correctly in return for total surrender of Colonial forces on this world and us not helping the rest of the colonies fight you will not launch any attacks against us and you will free any POWs from Libran you have?"

"Yes, as long as they sign a contract saying that they will not take up arms against us and if they are caught doing so they will be subject to harsh punishment up to and including death." Added Woolsey "And you will hand over anyone who was behind the operation to carry out the nuclear strike on Valhalla, you will give up all claims to the Tau'ri people and Valhalla or as you call it Kobol. Lastly you will put freedom of and from religion into law on Libran."

"For peace, this is a price I am willing to pay. I will make a speech to may get others to give up the fight." stated the King as he held out his hand. "Doctor Woolsey on these terms Libran surrenders.

**Onboard the Akula the ships were in position to make an attack run on the Colonial FTL capable fleet over Aquaria when a flash message came over the communication center. **

"Flash traffic." Yelled the communication officer as he ran the computer pad over to Captain Ramius who read the message from command before handing it over to his first officer. "Contact the fleet, we are on hold. We are not to engaged the enemy fleet."

"Why sir?" inquired the weapon's officer

"Libran's government has just come to peace agreement with our representatives there." Explained Ramius "We are on hold to since some of those ships may be under Libran command and may surrender, so we are on hold."

"Yes, sir." Confirmed the weapons officer as the Akula sheath ships watched and waited for the order to attack.

**Space ripped open as a task force of 19 ships entered the system, only nine of the ships appeared to be warships.** Nine of the ships where the large Hadrian class transport ships with two battleships, three Daedalus class cruisers and four Galahad class destroyers. They had four squadrons of Eagle fighters protecting the ships and in the heart of the fleet was a ship that the colonials had yet to see and most of the Tau'ri had yet to see as well. It appeared to be similar to a battleship only instead of shaped similar to a sword with a long central column with hangers on either side, it had two long columns which shot all the way forward with it connected in the center in the back. The Ragnarok had arrived and it made a course toward Caprica City.

**Well I hope you liked this chapter, I would like to thank everyone who reviewed and I ask that you keep on reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	74. Chapter 74

**Important Note: Just to let you know, this story is nearing the end. I estimate between 5 to 10 chapters and then this story will have reach it's end. I do plan to have not one but two sequels, first Contact of Races (Stargate/Worldwars series) a short maybe 15 to 20 chapters followed by my Mass Effect/Stargate story which is still in more up in the air when it comes to plot not sure when I want to put it in time in relation to the Reaper attack. I tell you this so that when this story does end you keep reading and so that you know that I will not be going straight into the Mass Effect/Stargate Story. Now enjoy the chapter, Wilkins75. **

**Chapter 74 Falling Apart**

As the Ragnarok moved across the colonial system which was now under the total command of Tau'ri forces, it moved under heavy escort with more ships and fighters moving to take a defensive position around the seemly unarmed ship. Unlike almost every other Tau'ri ship the Ragnarok had no anti-air defense systems, it had no rail guns, no missile pods and aside from a small hanger that could fit only a half dozen Owls or Jumpers it had no offensive capability. In fact the only weapon the ship had was its main weapon and as such it required escorts to protect it. The movement of the Tau'ri ships to protect the Ragnarok didn't go unnoticed by the handful of still operating Dradis systems but even so it something that the Colonials couldn't do anything about and they had enough problems to deal with. The Colonial military was on its knees and almost everyone in uniform with experience knew that they had no chance, short of a miracle and a huge miracle of that. The Tau'ri held all the cards and they were getting pounded.

One of the people who knew that was the Colonial General in command of Lezbha, over the course of hours he had watched his command fall apart. In the morning he had stood and watched as row after row of tanks and vehicles rolled by to launch their counter attack. That attack had died within sight of his defense line, then his defense line which by all estimates and common sense should have held for days fell within ten minutes of the Tau'ri attack. Now he had Tau'ri forces holding the main airbase, the tank factory was still in colonial hands but on the edge of where he knew the Tau'ri lines where and he was in a secondary minor airfield which was used mostly for training. His lines where breaking, he had disorder all around him and the Tau'ri owned the sky and the space above it.

"Any reports from the corner of 3rd and 18th street?" inquired the General

"None, sir and Tau'ri tanks have been seen on the streets beyond it." Reported an aid as the General reached over the map and put a red X over the spot, another unit had been destroyed. "Sir, that was our last Pallas tank force."

"I know." confirmed the general as the force of artillery hitting nearby cause some dust to fall on the map. He out of Pallas tanks and he was nearly out of Hoplon APCs, he had sent almost all of them out in the first wave to retake land and they had all died. The only two fighting vehicles which he had any real numbers in were his Phrygian recon vehicles and his Toxotai mobile rocket launcher. Both vehicles where now being thrown into battle in ways they were never designed to be, a single Phrygian was being sent to try to hold street corners which would normally be held by at least a Pallas tank and three to four Phrygians. That was the common mission for them now and it was common now that they didn't make it back.

The Toxotai was actually proving itself to be a good platform for dealing with the Tau'ri. It fired up to 36 unguided rockets within a few heart beats and then it could move. That is what so far proven to be the most effective weapon he had. They could pop out from behind building cover and fire horizontally into a column of advancing Tau'ri. He had reports if only a handful of destroyed Tau'ri tanks from those ambushes and the Toxotai could fire and move before Tau'ri counter artillery fire which took the form of their own multiple rocket system could hit them. Even so it wasn't enough as the Tau'ri hit them at every turn and with their control of the sky his Toxotai where disappearing as well.

"We need to reform, can possibly form a defense line at the eastern trench network." said the General as he looked at the trench lines which surrounded the city, the Tau'ri had hit it on the North, South and West but not the East, that part was not under direct attack yet. However he knew that was only a stalling action at best, the Tau'ri armored forces coming from the North and South where moving around the city taking over the trench network and moving to encircle the city. "No we need to escape to reform. I need to slow them down so that we can pull out of the city."

The General took a breath as he thought about the options before him, he had orders to hold Lezbha but that was already gone. Now he had to focus on saving as much of his command as he could, he needed to slow down the Tau'ri to buy time to pull his forces out of the Eastern gap before the Tau'ri enclosed him. He had only a single option and he decided to use it, no matter what the Tau'ri did. He picked up the phone and made the call.

**Elsewhere inside the city limits of Lezbha, Colonel Jager sat in the turret of his disabled Leopard III tank, on the screens which monitored everything going on around the outside of the tank. **Since his tank was a command tank he was able to watch his column of tanks move forward toward the airbase. He then switched to a map of the battle overall, as he did he saw how the different elements of the attack was going. Most of the forces where driving into the city however two wings where moving around the city taking the trench network. However it was clear from Jager's point of view that the armored forces making the push wasn't in any hurry, it took him a while to figure out why the high command didn't want to trap the Colonials inside the city. City fighting was horrible and bloody for both sides but if they let the Colonials escape into the country side they could crush the Colonials in a place that didn't provide them as much of a defensive stance as a city would give them.

Outside the tank walking around slightly on edge because he wasn't behind the armor of his tank was Private Spiro. Since he was the driver of a tank which wasn't able to move because of a knocked off tread he had very little to do. So he went outside and looked at the battle damaged, his tank was covered with marks and bullet strikes but the worse damage had come from the rocket. It had hit at the very front of the tread hitting the small gap between the armored skirt which surrounded the tanks side and the front armor. One foot to the right the rocket would have hit the ground or the thick frontal armor and if it had hit a foot to the left it would have armored skirt and had done nothing to the tank.

"Damn." cursed Private Spiro as he looked around at the nearby army soldiers, his uniform and their uniforms where slightly different. Since he had to operate in the confined space of a tank his power armor was thinner to make movement in confined space easier but not as powerful. The infantry soldiers just stood around without much of a care in the world, one of them had their helmet off and a cigar in his mouth. Suddenly a commotion from within drew everyone's attention. The radio set built into his helmet began to report that there was a small group of civilians in the school who were yelling at the guards and refusing to take orders. That wasn't unheard of and was in fact normal however they were speaking in a language that none of the guards had heard before.

"Captain, these old people are going crazy requesting permission to use stun rounds." requested a solider "They are yelling something like Hypiaka or something like that."

"Hypiaka means faithful in old Tauron." reported Spiro over the radio as the memories of his grandfather teaching him to pray to the Lords of Kobol in old Tauron came back. Even then he didn't believe in the Lords of Kobol, but when you were a Spiro you were either going to become a political figure or a priest those where your life choices nothing else.

"Who said that?" inquired the Captain over the radio

"Sir, Private Spiro, driver of the tank disabled outside…I…I am from Sagittarian." explained Spiro over the radio

"What, you are one of these Colonials fuckers who nuked Valhalla?" inquired a new voice.

"No, my parents where the people who got religious assuming before the attack on Valhalla." Explained Spiro as he decided to get back on topic so that he wouldn't have to talk about his heritage. "However Hypiaka is old Tauron for faithful."

"So you speak this stuff?" inquired the Captain

"Yes, I may be rusty but…"

"Private Spiro go in and help translate." Order Jager as his voice cut into the radio line. "The tank isn't going anywhere until the repair teams arrive, you will be more useful inside."

"Yes, sir." Said Spiro as he made sure his personal defense weapon, a vector carbine was ready before heading inside. He didn't have to really worry about a threat, the only weapons where in Tau'ri hands and apart from rushing the Tau'ri and throwing their bodies in the way of bullets the Colonials where helpless. When he entered, the cafeteria turned civilian area he found a group of six or seven older civilians yelling their heads off at a nearby group of three army soldiers. They were yelling in old Tauron but he followed most of it and it was mostly insults.

"Spiro?" inquired one of the soldiers as he nodded before moving forward. His name which was the name of one of the most powerful families in Colonial history and the last name of the current Vice President brought everyone's attention as he moved forward and stood between his infantry counterparts and the old Tauron civilians.

"Yes, sir." Said Spiro as he saluted the higher officer. "You needed a translator?"

"Yes, do you understand what the hell they are saying?" inquired the officer

"For the most part sir." Answered Spiro "They are basically calling us cowards who hide behind masks and have no honor. They are also telling us that we are going to burn in the fire of hades and other not family friendly insults."

Then one of the older women snapped, causing Spiro to snap his head and curse her in the same language. The fact that he knew one of the most profane insult in old Tauron caused them to switch back to the normal Caprician.

"How…how do you know that?" inquired the older woman as Spiro tapped the side of his helmet, an air tight seal which was there to protect against gas attacks released and with a quick movement he pulled his helmet off and placed it under his arm.

"I know it because my Grandfather is Vice President Spiro." explained Spiro as the people looked at him.

"Impossible the oldest of grandsons are in their early teens and you are older than that." countered an older woman as the younger Spiro grinned.

"The thing is that the Tau'ri are capable of slowing down time and they trapped all the colonies in a bubble of slow time." Laughed Spiro "It's been almost 5 years since you dropped the nuke on Valhalla, five years since you killed thousands of innocent people with nuclear fire and for the hatred of you to fester. Five years for them to build up all the tools we will need to crush you and we are doing a fucking good job of it."

Spiro said this unaware that all this information was being broadcasted out, a colonial news crew was among the small group of civilians being held and the Tau'ri had never took away their cameras. They did this because they actually had orders to let them alone and let them broadcast because the more it got out just how outclass the Colonials where the faster peace would hopefully come. The image of the young Spiro only took up the screens of some news stations for a brief moment before word came down that the King of Libran was going to make an announcement.

**The King of Libran stood before the grand hall of flowers which did live up to the name, each wall was lined with huge portraits which ran from ceiling to floor. **The walls where pure white marble however running over the walls where fake veins made out of green gemstones made out of emeralds, fake flowers also made out rare stones where everywhere to be seen. Roses made from rubies, other flowers where made from Sapphires, Amethyst and diamonds. He was dressed in a fine black suit with a pin of the flag of Libran on the front of his suit. Beside him was wife who had also dressed for the occasion but kept it simple in a white dress. There were other members of the Quorum and while not every member of the Quorum from Libran could be put on screen they had all signed the terms of surrender.

He nodded to the camera, with a quick 3 count the camera turned on and the royal seal of Libran which also severed as the seal of Libran. In the old days, the royal line served as the head of the world with an elected body of law makers and advisors. Later when unification came with the other colonies the royal family was basically family line of governors and governess. The royal family was beloved by the people of Libran and highly respected outside of the world as well. He looked toward the camera with a sad smile on his face but of a look of a man who had just made a difficult decision.

"Ladies and Gentlemen of Libran and the other colonies, we have all carried a heavy burden we have loss so much because of this war. Men and women of Libran like every other colony has marched out to the battlefield against the Tau'ri and they have shown so much bravery and detection. That brings honor onto not only them but to all of Libran." Said the King

Like so many other people President Richard Adar was watching the broadcast but unlike most he knew that this wasn't an ordered speech to bring up troop morale and give hope.

"What are you doing?" inquired Adar to the screen.

"We have fought and died on the field of honor however we must all come to realize that this war is over, we have all seen what the Tau'ri are capable of." Said the King as Adar like so many other realize what was going on. "Therefor as my power of King and with the support of the Quorum members from Libran who have been elected by the people I have surrendered Libran to the Tau'ri."

"Fraken traitor!" yelled one of the Sagittarian Quorum member beside the President "They will burn in Hades for this betrayer of humanity and the Lords of Kobol."

"I swore a duty to protect the people and as such I have decided to do this, the Tau'ri have already accepted our surrender and as part of the terms there will be some slight changes, we have released the Tau'ri of any ties to the people of Libran and we have released our claim to Valhalla or Kobol. We have also agreed to change our religious laws to allow full freedom of and from religion." Stated the King "In return not only will the Tau'ri be shortly releasing any POWs from Libran that they may have taken in their offensive but they will return at once any Libran who surrenders to them. They will also not attack our world. I call on President Adar who I respect but he must realize that this war is over and the death of our people isn't worth this. We have lost so much and at every turn the Tau'ri have given us a chance to end this and each time we refused they unleash another weapon we had never dreamed of. Libran is not going to take it anymore, we will not throw more of our citizens into the fires of Hades for nothing. We have been beaten, we accept this it is time for everyone else to accept this. Now Goodnight and may wisdom rule the day."

**Space ripped opened outside of the Colonial system containing the three habitual worlds of Libran, Scorpio and Sagittarian. Coming out of the rip in space came not colonial warships but a task force of 25 Tau'ri warships including five battleships and two carriers. **Leading the task force onboard the Indian battleship Shiva was the same General who had been in command of Valhalla during the colonial strike General Raj-Sing. He had requested command of his nations first battleship since he knew that he wouldn't have been able to keep his command of Valhalla after the surprise attack. Only the word of General O'Neill prevented him from losing all his rank and being booted out of the military as a scapegoat for the attack.

"Any Colonial ships?" inquired General Raj-Sing, he knew what the answer would be but he still had to ask.

"None." Confirmed an aid as the battlegroup headed toward the nearest of the colonial planets. It was also likely to be the hardest nut to crack, Sagittarian. The other two planets of Scorpio and Libran, Libran had just surrender so they would be spared however after Sagittarian, Scorpio would be the next target. The cloaked ships in the system moved away from Sagittarian to make room for the warships to work. The arrival of the Tau'ri fleet was noticed by colonial planet side Dradis systems and the alerts went out to the military bases. The bases were already on alert but hadn't launched any vipers or raptors because thanks to the Tau'ri cloaks they had no idea where their enemies where. Now they had targets and they were ready to fight, across the thick mountains of Sagittarian where hidden missile silos which dated back to the cylon war. The order went out as the men and women stationed their turned keys in control panels.

When they turned their keys the silo lids moved off to show the cone of a multiple stage, anti-ship nuclear missile. At almost the same moment over a thousand 68-foot-long cylinders shot out of their resting places and headed up and out toward the oncoming threat. People living near the missiles bases saw the launch and knew that the war had once again come to them. Fear built up in almost everyone but some of them where actually pleased because they believed that when the Tau'ri landed they could defeat them and win back the holy world of Kobol.

Landing forces was the last thing that Tau'ri where thinking about doing, they were happy to see the cloud of nuclear missiles coming toward them. The military commanders on Sagittarian hungry to strike back had launched their missiles at max range and therefor the Tau'ri computers had more time to destroy them with rail gun fire. The Indian Battleship Shiva, the South Korean battleship the Admiral Yi and the Canadian Battleship Aurora took the lead as they destroyed the missiles before spreading out around the planet. The colonial viper force moved up as well, maybe because the bulk of the forces stationed on Sagittarian where Sagittarian and fueled with faith they carried out attacks that their counterparts on Caprica already knew was suicidal and pointless. The Sagittarian viper pilots threw themselves against the Tau'ri shields and just like before they had no effect on the unstoppable Tau'ri advance.

**The force of the Tau'ri advance was felt most of all on Tauron, where the Tau'ri military power was currently focused.** Lee Adama had moved out of Lezbha and was heading due east toward the small sea which was located maybe three hours away by car. He like so many others where on foot and so the sea was almost 60 hours away on foot. The mass of humanity leaving the city was a mix of civilians and military members, people were mostly on foot or on bicycles. A few civilian vehicles did move down the road but most of those drew the attention of Tau'ri aircraft.

"Get down!" yelled a voice as everyone fell onto the concrete as a missile came swooping in from the sky and slammed into a van. The van exploded in a giant fireball killing whoever was in it, it was unclear if it was civilians or military personal because the Colonial military was taking over civilian vehicles to move their forces. Unlike most Lee knew just how bad it had to be if the army was taking over mini-vans to move soldiers around and he also knew that the Tau'ri must be running out of targets if they were firing missiles at vans.

Lee turned his head skyward and saw multiple flights of Eagle fighters and other Tau'ri aircraft filling the sky. As he did he heard the sound of gunfire as more fire came from the sky, this time it was slightly ahead of Lee. The sound of the fire caused the civilians to run for their lives as Lee ran forward moving his rifle out from behind his back to a position in which if he had to he could defend himself. Then just as suddenly as it started the fire stopped. With the civilian out of the way Lee was able to run up to the spot where the fire had been. What he found was a blood bath as multiple colonials lied died in the street, most of them where in civilian clothes and they were of all ages and sex. Still burning where two heavy duty army trucks and judging from what remained of the area around them they were handing out weapons.

"Pulling refugees out and recruiting them to fight." stated Lee to himself as he looked at all the rifles and ammo which lied around the destroyed area.

High above Lee's head onboard a modified Pelican transport which had become a gunship Lee Adama rested in the gun site of the gunner which had destroyed the trucks.

"Sir, I have another combatant in my sights." stated the gunner as he sat at the control of the railgun.

"How many?" inquired the operator

"One." Confirmed the gunner "May I fire?"

"For a single man?" inquired the operator as the gunner nodded his head. "No, not worth the price of a railgun round find a different target."

"Yes, sir." Confirmed the gunner as the crosshairs moved away from Lee.

**Inside Lezbha the news of their home world surrender hadn't reached Acacia or Medea as they ran through the streets trying to escape the Tau'ri behind them. **They like so many others had loss all the will to fight and now they were only focused on saving their own lives. Some of them where dropping their weapons as they ran and others where actually ripping off their uniforms to pass off as civilians. It wasn't that all of them where running for the hills as the Tau'ri would call it. Some of them did try to stay in fight, there was officers who yelled for people to take defensive position but even as they did Tau'ri Adder attack helicopters did strafing runs down the wide streets of Lezbha.

"Take cover!" yelled Medea as she slammed her best friend to the ground as a Tau'ri helicopter did an attack run down the road firing their nose mounted cannon. The Adder flew off leaving a bloodbath behind, men and women where now dead, limbless or in the case of the two women still alive.

"We need to move!" yelled Acacia as she helped Medea up as the screeching sound of rocket fire filled the air. That was a sound both of them knew, they had heard it in training a group of Toxotai where firing their missiles. Both of them looked up as they watched the flights of missiles fly toward them, passing over their heads before landing a few hundred yards behind them near where the Tau'ri where likely going to be. However instead of fireballs there was much small explosions followed by clouds of white smoke.

"Gas, we are using gas?" Said Medea as the cloud of gas moved down toward the Tau'ri, even so they could see some of their own people falling down their bodies conversion as the gas did its deadly work. Both women worked fast as they rushed to put on their gas masks. The masks had huge harden plastic eye coverings with thick plastic hoods which was lined to keep out the gas, a large filter was attached to the front. They looked like WW1 or WW2 gas masks but they did provide protection from the gas. "Let's hope that slows them down."

Down around the corner from Medea and Acacia was the Tau'ri pair of point men. The two of them had taken cover behind a half-destroyed car and where dueling with a machine gunner located just down the road. It was the native of Israel who spotted the white cloud coming their way. His heart froze as he realized what it was. He slammed his fellow point men, a Palestinian on the back and pointed out the gas. They both saw the machine gun fell quiet as the gas rolled down toward them.

"Gas, we have gas." yelled the Israeli point men as they both double checked his power suits onboard computer system, everything read green even so they held their breath as the white gas washed over them. It wasn't needed power suit's built in computer quickly scanned the gas and ID that the built in filters on the full face helmet was more than enough. With each breath, the filters cleaned the gas out of the air, if needed he also carried two tanks of air on his back, it would provide him with up to three hours of air in any terrain ranging from gas attack to space. The point mans calmed themselves as they scanned the battlefield with the vision enhancement on their helmet they was able to see through the smoke and he moved forward stepping over the dead bodies of the colonial defenders killed by their own gas attack. Behind them the other members of their two squad did the same as they moved through the gas, inside the vehicles it was even easer as the over pressure system helped keep the gas out.

All the gas did was help clear a path for the Tau'ri as they kept up their advance through what remained of Lezbha. They advanced through it passing over the colonial dead which would have slowed them down but they had been killed by the Colonial own gas.

**Meanwhile a flight of five Raptors flew just over the tree line in the national park which sat less than a 100 miles outside of Caprica City, with the Colonial forces under constant fire from Tau'ri they had to stay low in order to stay in the air. **They made a turn to follow a road which lead them toward the Colonial Military Prison of Eurytheus, it was the same prison that had once held Colonel O'Neill before the start of the war. It had become one of the main forward operating base to what most colonial commanders believed had to be the upcoming invasion of Caprica. Throughout the Cylon War, the Cylons had multiple times attempted to take the Colonial Capital, it basically fell to the old style of war which boiled down to if I take the Capital I win. As such Eurytheus located in the Mountains of Hercules was a major forward operation base, the five Raptors flew over the double razor wire fence and the twenty-foot-tall stone wall.

The raptors lowered themselves near one of the landing zones, most of the landing zones where empty as the Raptors they did have where airborne or destroyed. As the raptors landed ground crews rushed forward to restock the weapons as best they could mostly in the form of Machine gun rounds. When the side ramp opened they were greeted by a four men jumping out from each of the raptors. All of them where dressed in colonial uniforms but the strange thing was that all of them had assault rifles, none of them carried bolt action rifles which was standard.

"Where is the base commander!" yelled the highest ranking of them.

"In the command center." Yelled the ground crew member pointing toward the main building. Over the sound of the engine noise no one heard the shots as the Colonials who had stepped off the Raptors shot each member of the ground crew with pistol rounds to the stomach and head.

"Move." ordered the Delta force commander as he and the other members of the assault team dressed and armed as Colonials moved into the command center and other key locations around the base. Some moved toward the prison towers and the motor pool where people were busy getting organized. A team of 8 of them moved into the command center and as they did, they began to mow down people as they did. The Delta force members where far better trained then the colonials they were up against and while they had the same weapons on it didn't matter, they had the element of surprise. They moved through the prison turned makeshift command center. They cut down the guards as prisoners began to yell from their cells.

They reached the command center in the warden's office with ease, the Tau'ri breached and cleaned out the command center, they moved through the base and thanks to the fact that they were in Colonial uniforms it gained them a slight edge as colonial soldiers paused for a second or two when they saw someone in their own uniform appear from around a corner. The Tau'ri had certain targets in mind, they had come mainly for Baltar who was a prisoner here but if they just took him that would stand out. So they moved to take all the none violence prisoners from Libran. They would free them and then yell at them to head toward the Raptors their government had surrendered and it was time to go home. Since the most violent offenders they released was for drug use and the most common was sleeping on duty or being away most where happy to get out of prison. Then the Tau'ri reached the political prisoners, here most of the people were arrested for handing out anti-war or anti-religious materials while in uniform. Here the Tau'ri released all of them not worrying about which world they came from however while the others were on their own Baltar had his own escort as the members of Delta force pulled out rushing to a waiting Raptor. The Other Raptors where loaded up with the escapees but the Raptor that Baltar found himself shoved into had only members of Delta force on it with the pilot being a Cylon. Within ten minutes of hitting the base, the Raptors took off and disappeared in flashes of light.

**The Tau'ri where the only one sending special forces out into the battlefield, a small group of some of the best soldiers in the 12 colonies of Kobol had been sent on a mission deep by Colonial standards behind the lines. **They had to journey from the Colonial lines to the Tau'ri held space port/military base at Hypatia. The group of 8 men dressed in the most advanced battle dress that the colonials had moved toward the space port they reached what remained of a parking structure which provided an overview of the space port. What they saw was a Hadrian class transport ship had landed on what remained of the runway, there was crews of men and women in larger power armor unloading supplies. All of this was something they expected to see, what threw them was that there was a line of maybe 30 vipers and an equal number of Raptors sitting on the runway. Behind it were also Pallas tanks and other ground vehicles.

"What the frak are they doing with them." Said one of the recon force as the Tau'ri started loading some of the Colonial hardware onto the transport.

"I have no idea." Said another as he lifted a pair of binoculars to his eyes and zoomed in as best he could. He could see that some of the colonial weapons had been wrapped up as if they were going to be put into storage. Some of them where actually being put into cargo containers, on the containers where large painted letters that he could just make out. "Smithsonian"

"Smithsonian? What the frak is that?" inquired another member of his team as they began to take pictures of the Tau'ri actions. As they did, they got a sinking feeling as they noticed a pattern, it broke when they saw that saw the words "RAF Museum" painted on the side of one container that a Viper had just been loaded into.

"By the Lords of Kobol are picking up Museum pieces?" inquired the head of the team "They are gathering up pieces for their museums."

"Cocky frakers!" cursed another member as they began to realize that the Tau'ri where in such a good position that they could use a large transport ship to load up museum pieces.

**Directly over Hypatia was the flagship of the Tau'ri fleet, the battleship Missouri standing in her officer was General Leong, she stood before a holographic display of the battle and the different events going on. **The ground forces where advancing well and in space they had reached almost all of their objects ahead of schedule. The Admiral in charge of the ships walked in and handed her a computer pad which she read carefully.

"The Akula and her task force is ready to launch their attack on what remains of the colonial navy." Reported the Admiral as Leong nodded her head.

"Order all ships over Tauron, I want all beam weapons charged and ready to fire." ordered Leong as the Admiral raised an eyebrow. "The Colonial Navy is going to launch a counter attack, well what will pass of a counter attack and they will do it right here, right over Tauron."

"Not the best place for a counter attack, in the heart of our defenses pure suicide." stated the Admiral

"Yes, and that is why they will do it." Stated General Leong "I have read their history and studied their culture, music and art and throughout history they always held up the suicidal attack in high regard and honor. Look at their religion, it says in their holy scrolls that Ares fought a last stand against Thor on the fields of Kobol to allow humans to escape. If you need more look at how they hold up different events in the cylon war, those people who threw themselves into the jaws of death are held in a higher regard, they are going to try a suicidal counter attack and we must be ready."

"We will be." confirmed the Admiral

**Over Aquaria what remained of the colonial fleet was ready for battle, but they had no idea where they would be going. **That changed when new orders where sent out to every colonial ship, onboard the battlestar Galactica the message came off the decryption machine and was carried over to Admiral Adama. He looked down at the orders and the mission given to them by their president, Adama reread the paper before handing it over to his second in command Saul Tigh. The old Colonel read the message.

"They want us to jump to Tauron and destroy the Tau'ri at any costs." Read Tigh outload. "No real targets just that, we jump, we fight and we die."

"Yes." confirmed Adama "And every ship got this message, they know the orders as well as I do."

**Onboard the nearby cloaked Tau'ri vessel Akula the radio or as the colonials called it wireless traffic was intercepted and decoded faster than even the colonials could do it. **The message of the upcoming attack on the Tau'ri at Tauron was rushed into Captain Ramius hand's.

"Well looks like we can't wait any longer, they don't seem like they are going to surrender any time soon." Stated Captain Ramius as he handed the message back to the officer "Send this to General Leong and the other command level officers and tell them we are launching our attacks."

"Yes, sir." Said the officer as the Akula class ships spread out across the system began to move into their final attack position. The operation was straight forward, while most of the ships took care of the defenses around the colonial worlds a handful of ships would decloak and raise shields as they made a run through the colonial fleet. They would teleport nuclear weapons onboard colonial ships as well as use their own beam weapon to destroy as much of the 300-strong fleet before them. They would then head into the multiple small moons and countless asteroids which orbited a gas giant. There with protection from colonial fire that the asteroids gave they would cloak and with luck they would lure the colonials into range of their beaming technology as they hid in the asteroids.

"All ships attack." ordered Captain Ramius as the Akula and her sister ships moved into battle. They were at the outer edge of the colonial fleet, because they were preparing to jump into battle, the number of Viper fighters where low. Before the ships decloaked they beamed onboard the first group of nukes to the ships making out the outer ring of ships. The timer on each nuke was only 15 seconds and once away that timer started at once. Seconds before they went off the Akula dropped cloak and raised shields, as they raised shields the first group of ships exploded in giant fireballs.

Alarms began blaring inside every colonial ship as the Akula ships powered their way into the Colonial fleet. Since the Akula class ships only had a single beam weapon each they where limited in that way, however they carried a much larger stock of nuclear weapons. They put those weapons to use as they beamed nukes onboard every ship that they got in range of. Due to the risk of getting surrounded the Akulas hit the shortest distance between their location and their cover. That lead them just off the heart of the fleet, they had over 50 ships within their area of operation and all of them where on the target list.

The colonials fired back as best as they could but the Tau'ri had hit them flat footed just as they were about to carry out an attack off their own. The Tau'ri ships shields took the blows from the Colonial guns with ease as their engines powered them through the fleet at the same speed of a Colonial Viper. The Colonials guns focused on the ships but before they could do a whole lot of damage they had disappeared into the asteroids and moons of the gas giant.

In a rage some of the Colonial Commanders ordered their ships forward to attack those who had attacked them. As they moved forward they passed the remains of 50 colonial warships.

"Order them to stop!" snapped Admiral Adama as he realized what the Tau'ri where trying to do, but it was too late. Another five ships which where nearest to where the Tau'ri had disappeared blew up. "Pull them back and reform."

"Are you going to launch the attack?" inquired Saul "It would get us away from them."

"And we would instead find ourselves in the middle of an even worse bloodbath." Said Adama "We are in a terrible position and an attack will do nothing but waste lives."

"Sir, the orders come the President." added a deck officer as he looked at the two older officers "Admiral the fleet is ready."

"We just lost 50 ships, kid." Snapped Saul but the young officer never looked at the older high ranking officer.

"Admiral, shall we go?" inquired the officer, Saul turned and looked at his friend. He watched as Adama dropped his head and looked away. "Admiral shall we go?"

Once again Admiral Adama dropped his head and looked away.

"Admiral, I will carry out the attack per orders from high command." Said of the officer as once again Admiral Adama looked away. Saul knew what it meant, he knew just like he did, this was suicide and he didn't want to order them into an attack that he knew would cost them every ship. He also knew that if he tried to refuse the order then another ship would take command, the high command had sent the orders to every ship to force his hand. With that the colonial fleet, what was left of it disappeared in flashes of light heading straight toward Tauron believing that they would surprise the Tau'ri with a bold strike, the Tau'ri where already expecting them and where ready.

**Sorry for the slightly longer than normal delay, I rewrote this chapter a few times and the company I work for has a very let's call it interesting rule. If three departments are on overtime everyone even departments that have nothing to do with production goes on overtime to help them. 10 hour days 6 days a week for a total of 60 hours a week, such fun. Thanks Wilkins75**


	75. Chapter 75

**Chapter 75 Art of War**

When the order first came to the Battlestar Galactica and the handful of remaining colonial navy ships Admiral Adama didn't want to believe it. He didn't want to believe that the people he had sworn a duty to whereas foolish as this, that they would throw away so many lives in a useless attack but they did. He had orders and while he had refused to give orders that he knew would lead to the deaths of likely every man and women under his command he followed them. So the Galactica like every other colonial Navy FTL capable ship appeared over the capital city of Tauron Hypatia. Ever since the start of the Tau'ri attack less than a day ago they had been in high orbit over the city, so the plan was to jump into a low orbit. The colonial navy would skim the atmosphere at such a height that while it was possible for them to stay in one spot and fight they couldn't stay there long. If the Tau'ri designed their ships like the colonials then the bottom of the ship would have less weapon platforms compared to the top and sides, it would of course still have some but it would less the amount.

"Launch vipers, send our raptor force out on their mission have them jump inside the flight pods if they have to." Ordered Admiral Adama as the Dradis system came online as well as the main guns. It took a pass or two for a Dradis to pick up any ships after a jump but after the sixth pass there was still nothing above them.

"What the frak? Where are they?" inquired Saul wondering where the enemy was.

"**Starbuck launching!" reported Starbuck as her viper was sent out a long tube and out into the very thin atmosphere of Tauron.** They were on the edge of space about the same level that low level satellites would normally be. She looked up expecting to see Tau'ri ships overhead and she and the other vipers would attack them from below. On battlestars it's under side was normally the less defended when it came to AA guns. She looked up to see a handful of Tau'ri ships overhead but no were near the amount of ships there should have been. Then across from her and the Galactica another one of the battlestars exploded in a giant fireball. Then she saw that the beam of light had come from below, the battlestar that had been hit bucked before exploding into multiple pieces.

"They are below us!" yelled Starbucks as she spun her viper around and saw the bulk of the Tau'ri forces below them hovering in atmosphere of Tauron. As she spun her viper around the focus of her dradis was turned down and that is when she saw that the Tau'ri fleet had spread out in a bowl like shape with the Colonial navy in the center of the bowl. Then the ships began to glow as beams of light shot up and began to tear into the colonial ships.

"How did they know? How did they know we were coming?" inquired another voice over the wireless

"Enemy fighters incoming!" reported another pilot as Starbuck noticed that there was Eagle fighters heading up toward her and all the vipers that had taken off from the ships.

"All forces attack!" yelled Starbuck as the vipers dove for the deck and the oncoming Tau'ri fighters. The Tau'ri with their longer range missiles fired first and as one the Colonial vipers fired their cannons forming a wall of bullets that with luck would take down the Tau'ri missiles. It worked for the most part but then more missiles and beam shots came in from the ships on the rim of the bowl and the Colonial vipers could only cover the sky with so much bullets. They began to drop as missiles made it through the wall and with each destroyed Viper the wall became weaker. Then it no longer came down to missiles as the Tau'ri came closer and a massive dog fight began over Tauron.

**Onboard the Galactica alarms where going off as the fleet was being torn apart, battlestars where being destroyed every moment and more ships where disappearing from the Dradis screen.** The colonials had planned to attack from below because on their ships the underside of the ship was always the least armed. Now the Tau'ri had them from below.

"We need to get out of here order the fleet to jump." ordered Adama as the Galactica rocked under fire from the Tau'ri weapons. So far a beam strike hadn't hit his ship but many others where not so lucky.

"Sir! Our wireless is being scrambled!" yelled an operator before a powerful blast caused her terminal to explode sending shrapnel into his face killing her.

"We have fires on decks 3-15." Reported Saul as he picked up his internal phone to order a jump, but before he could the ship bucked and sent him and everyone else flying up into the ceiling before crashing back down.

**In the middle of the dogfight, the colonials where being slaughtered the Tau'ri Eagle fighters where pulling moves in atmosphere that should have killed the pilot and their close-range missiles where a nightmare.** What didn't help was that whenever a Tau'ri pilot wanted to they could pull back and return to one of the ships to rearm, then more missiles came in whipping out whole wings of vipers as Condor bombers on the edge of the battle rippled fire multiple missiles into the dog fight. Thanks to IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) that was built into the Eagles the Tau'ri missiles knew not to go after them.

"Flight Starbuck report in now!" ordered Starbuck as she spun her viper around 180 degrees and fired her cannons into a Eagle fighter, this time she was reward to see smoke coming off the fighter but it didn't go down.

"Flight Starbuck report now!" she repeated but no response came, her flight was gone.

"Starbucks to Galactica Wing report in!" ordered Starbuck but once again there was no response, then as she made a turn her heart stopped and her eyes locked on in horror. Two blue beams of light stroke her ship, the Galactica bucked as both beams hit at almost the same moment, one in the starboard flight pod and the other near the engines on the starboard side. It was as if the ship had a large chunk bitten off it as the massive ship's engines glowed for a moment before dying, with no engines gravity became as deadly of an enemy as the Tau'ri. The battlestar rolled to its side and dove into the atmosphere.

**Inside the Galactica alarms where blaring as the people who were still inside where tossed around like rag dolls.** If this had happened in space, the ships automatically would have sealed off parts of the ship open to space unless it was overridden but since they were diving into the atmosphere that wasn't the case.

"We need engine power!" yelled Adama as he held onto the handrails built into the side of the command table. "We need to level or flight if we go in nose first we are all fraken dead!"

"Yes, sir!" yelled Saul before yelling into the phone, he knew that they where likely dead already and he didn't even know if the phones still worked but he yelled into it anyway as the battlestar dove down toward Tauron. It dove past the Tau'ri ships and headed nose first toward the oncoming ground.

Starbuck for her part had moved toward her doomed ship and followed its path down, maybe due to the massive bulk of the battlestar or the pieces of metal and other items that were coming off it. No Tau'ri missiles came after her as she drove past the Tau'ri lines and toward the planet. Below and to her right she could see Hypatia with smoke still rising but white smoke showing older fires that had been put out but still smoky. To the North she could massive amounts of thick black smoke showing fires that still burned out of control and it was toward that area that the doomed battlestar was heading. A body passed by her cockpit and what made it worse was she wasn't sure the man was dead.

"Frak…FRAK…FRAK!" yelled Starbuck as suddenly her viper bounced in the air.

**Down on the surface Lee Adama had found a bicycle and was peddling as hard as he could away from Lezbha, his plan was simple to head out of the city which he had already done and then make it to the sea.** While it was a small sea, he knew that there was a Colonial military base on the other side, if he got there he could maybe get back into the cockpit of a viper and into the air, back into the fight. As he moved toward the coast he passed by civilians and some military personal who thought they had gone far enough to avoid the Tau'ri and had stopped for a rest. He had kept moving as he did the number of refugees got thinner, before him was a small rise which stuck out on the flat open ground of Tauron. He was maybe halfway up when a roar filled the air causing him to look up. What he saw amazed him, a battlestar or what remained of one was falling out of the sky.

It was hard to tell what kind of battlestar it was because it looked closer to a giant metal fireball as the heat of reentry caused a cone of superheated gas to form around it and its long tail moved out behind it. Then somehow through the gas he thought he saw the letters GALA written in giant letters on the side of the flight pod.

"Galactica?" inquired Lee as suddenly the ship's nose moved up slightly.

**Above Lee Starbuck's viper bucked as some of Galactica massive engines came back alive and the ship moved up a bit.** The Galactica was going to hit the planet, there was no way to avoid it but as it moved across the sky it leveled out a bit and at around a 1,000 ft Starbuck leveled out her viper and watched in amazement. As the Galactica slammed into the ground, but nose first and not totally on the ground. The engine boost had leveled the nose and given the ship enough power to crash mostly into sand which surrounded the sea. The nose however was not high enough as it dug into the sand and then before Starbuck's eyes the whole battlestar flipped over and the top of the ship slammed into the water while part of the nose ripped off.

"By the Lords of Kobol." Said Starbuck as the Galactica lied on the surface of Tauron. It on its back with its belly up like a turtle that had been flipped over on its shell but it looked mostly intact. It had broken up into maybe a half dozen pieces but they were all large and due to the sea water, which covered some of the ship there were no major fires raging.

**Onboard the Galactica Admiral Adama had no idea how he was alive, he had no idea what had happened only that the ceiling of his CIC was now the floor and the floor was the ceiling, some of his officers who hung upside down from their command chairs**. They had tightened on safety belts designed to hold them in during a nuclear strike on the ship, now they hung there most of them dead. A few where alive but it was hard to tell as multiple people where covered with blood.

"Saul?" inquired William as a hand slowly rose up from where the command table had come crashing down. There trapped under the table breathing weakly was his friend, the man who had stuck with him for decades Saul Tigh.

"Here." Said Saul weakly as Adama took his hand and gripped it tightly as blood came out of the side of his mouth.

"Don't worry we will get you out of here." reassured Adama as a sad smile crossed his old friend's face.

"No, this is my last stop." Stated Saul as he looked toward his side, just visible out of a jacket pocket was his hip flask. "One last drink?"

Adama nodded his head and took the hip flask and moved to pour a drink only to find that the bottom of the flask had busted open and all of the alcohol had been spilled on the floor.

"Frak." cursed Saul weakly before chuckling a bit.

"Just our luck." chuckled Adama as he leaned up against the side of the table and looked around. Those who were still alive where moving around trying to get their barring. Smoke and dust filled the air but now water was coming in but he didn't know where it was all coming from, maybe from the storage tanks but it smelled like salt.

"Yes, Sir…It's been a fraken honor….thank you for…" started Saul only to have his heart stop beating and his life leave him.

"It's been an honor old friend." said Adama as he closed his friend's eyes.

**Starbuck flew over her down crashed ship and looked down in horror, she had seen many battlestars get destroyed by the Tau'ri but this one felt worse than anything else she had seen. **She was so focused on the crashed battlestar that she never noticed her Dradis missile alert go off. Suddenly as the roar of the alarms blared even loader did she notice how much of a danger she was in. She spun her head around just in time to see the dark shape of an Eagle fighter, she realized her mistake and cursed herself as she knew she had allowed herself to be drawn in by the visual of her broken ship that she wasn't paying attention to the sky. She knew that a missile was inbound and that it was too late.

"Frak!" cursed Starbuck as she pulled the ejection level a second before her viper was slammed by a missile turning it into nothing but metal shards. She ejected safety but she was now falling to Tauron and whatever awaited her down below.

**Inland Lee stood stunned for a moment his brain still trying to grasp that he had just watched a battlestar fall from the sky.** His brain started working as he began to peddle his bike up the rise, his eyes scanned the far distance first where he could just make out the smoke rising from what he assumed to be the Galactica. He needed to get there and then find a way to contact what remained of the Colonial military. He started peddling his bike with all his strength as he moved toward his father's downed ship.

**Back in Lezbha the General in charge of the defense of the city knew that the fight was loss and had ordered a general retreat, his hope was to get as much of his forces out of the city.** His goal was to reach the small ocean, there he could board ships and once he and his command crossed the sea they could join whatever force is there.

"Lezbha is loss." Said the General as he got into his command car, which was in truth a confiscated civilian SUV, they were using civilian vehicles to evacuate the city. With soldiers pilling into school and city buses and semi-trucks pulling trailers full of supplies. He had ordered a small force to stay behind and to hold off the Tau'ri. His worry was the threat from the air, but since they were in civilian vechicals they may stand a better chance.

"Sir?" inquired an aid who was severing as driver.

"It is time to run away." stated the General as they started down the road, as they moved they moved past a group of solider who were going to be sacrificed to allow the others to escape. These soldiers where assigned to hold the one part of the trench system that the Tau'ri hadn't attacked from. He had little hope that they would hold for long considering that the trench system was designed to protect attacks coming into the city not stopping attacks from breaking out of the city. His only real hope was that the Tau'ri goal was the city itself and that they would stop when they took it. The gas attack had slowed them down, somewhat. He had hoped that the gas would stop them in their tracks but instead all it did was make them stop for a moment to make sure their chemical warfare equipment was working and then they walked through the cloud of gas.

**Miles away from the retreating Colonials Colonel Jager sat in his damaged Leopard tank but thanks to real time downloads from command he could watch the colonials fall back in detail.** He had nothing better to do so he watched as the colonials pulled out, that was what the Tau'ri wanted them to do. Street fighting is among the worst kind of warfare even with life sign detectors it was risky and the army didn't want to do it if they didn't have too. That was why the two armored wings which had moved around the city to take the trenches had left a gap open. They were letting the Colonials go, for the moment. They would have likely had gotten some away, the gas was slowing down the advanced no one wanted to cut their suit on a shard of metal and expose themselves to gas, that meant being careful.

With that done Jager switched over to the civilian broadcast channels and was greeted with a news man from the BBC broadcasting onboard one of the ships above Hypatia behind him in full view where multiple colonial warships being slaughtered live on TV. He knew that like every soldier and airmen his helmet had a built in camera that recorded everything for after combat review. He tapped in to the sound as the man spoke up.

"As you can see behind me is what remains of the Colonial Navy, they are currently in battle against our forces and it isn't going well to say the least." stated the reporter "Now back to you in the studio."

The image changed to show a man and a women sitting behind a desk with the image of big ben behind them.

"As the battle rages across the Colonies and this war comes hopefully to a close we are getting casualty reports every few hours and the latest one has just been released." stated the news woman. "Now the names of those who have lost their lives have not been released but at the moment the government has confirmed that the total casualties have broken the 3,000 mark. Those men and women will be remembered for all time for the duty they carried out defending our way of life."

Unknown to Jager that news broadcast was going out across the news channels of the 12 colonies of Kobol, this was done as a political operation against the government and it was working. All over the colonies people began to realize just how bad they had been beaten, it didn't help that they knew that a battlestar on average had a crew of 2,000. That meant that while hundreds of colonial ships had been lost likely with all hands and on top of the ground forces that had been destroyed it was likely millions of colonial soldiers in uniform where dead to the 3,000 Tau'ri dead. Across the Colonies worlds which had once been solid supporters of the war had their will broken. Worlds who were under fire from Tau'ri forces where breaking faster, worlds like Scorpio which had been pro war mostly because of the money that would come to build the fleet was now very anti-war. They didn't like being fired upon from orbit and it was similar on the other worlds aside from Gememon and Sagittarian. On those worlds religion was so strong and so engraved that it was impossible for the public in large to realize that they could have lost, they believed that if they held out then the Lords of Kobol would reward them with victory.

**That was the news coming in to President Richard Adar as he and the highest members of the government hid in an underground bunker on Virgon. **He was currently in the wireless broadcast and communication center of the base. From here he could in theory command the entire Colonial military and broadcast to every world, however the Navy was all but gone and communication was difficult to worlds under Tau'ri attack.

"Any word yet from our commanders on Libran?" inquired Adar as he looked toward a wireless officer "We need to get them back into the fight."

"Sir, I have Military command Libran on the line." Said the operator finally

"Military Command Libran this is President Adar who is this?" inquired Adar

"General Floros." said a female Voice

"Alright General I am ordering you to arrest the King of Libran, his family and all members of the Quorum. Libran is under military law by order of the President of the 12 colonies of Kobol." Started Adar but before he could finish General Floros spoke up.

"Sorry Sir, but I am no longer under your command." said General Floros as President Adar blinked at the words. "I have already spoken with my fellow Generals and the living Admirals on Libran and we agree with the King and the Quorum. We have surrendered to the Tau'ri and Libran is out of this war."

"I am the President of the 12 Colonies of Kobol do you hear me!" yelled Adar into the wireless.

"Yes, Sir and I understand that this can be seen as treason but a military officer first duty is to defend the people and in order to do that I must lay down my weapons and surrender." Stated General Floros "This war is loss."

"You will go to prison for this!" yelled Adar his voice breaking in fear and anger.

"Maybe but I don't think so, like I said this war is loss. I have seen the same reports as you we have already lost over a million men and women in this pointless war when all the Tau'ri wanted was to be left alone. We are going to do that, I recommend sir that you give up before you cost the lives of more people." stated General Floros as the line went dead along with the hopes of getting Libran back in the fight.

**Lightyears away from the 12 Colonies of Kobol and the battlefield Lt. James Chontos former Viper pilot turned POW watched from behind a chain link fence as new POWs from the battlefield marched past him and the people in his own camp. **They came out a giant ring which somehow connected by a wormhole with matching ring on Tauron outside of Hypatia. The people who marched past him and the other people who had been POWs since their ships had been destroyed over Kobol or Valhalla depending on who you asked. The new arrivals marched past with heads low and defeat on their faces, they wore bloody and dirty uniforms and seemed to be in a state of shook. As they marched they reached a series of tables where Tau'ri guards stood with computer pads. Nearby where Tau'ri APCs with weapons ready to fire. The Tau'ri with computer pads where processing the new POWs, this was easy because somehow the Tau'ri had gotten ahold of Colonial Military enlistment records which included everyone who enlisted DNA along with personal information. This was put in to allow remains of the dead to be ID and returned but now the Tau'ri where using it to separate people into different camps. Aside from their camp the others were separated by home world.

"The Tau'ri must be kicking our fraken asses if they have this many POWs." Said a voice beside as suddenly a Tau'ri rolled up in their version of a recon vehicle. He stood up and with a megaphone spoke up.

"Attention, everyone for Libran come forward now." ordered the man as slowly men and women moved forward. They all looked as defeated as the others, when people stopped coming forward Tau'ri guards moved forward and separated them off from the others. "We will now confirm your IDs and if you are from Libran then you shall be returned to your world after signing an agreement not to take up arms against us. Your King has surrendered and Libran is out of the war."

"What the frak?" inquired the other POWs as they watched the POWs from Libran get processed and headed back to the gate. Those who had already been process soon arrived and people where now leaving captivity.

**Onboard the Missouri, General Leong stood in the command and control center along with other high ranking officers.** The room was oval in shape with large holographic generators which allowed the commanders to monitor an entire battle or theater of war from a single room. The lack of a table allowed them to move around and through the holograms giving them a grew view of the battle. Currently they were watching the fight taking place over Hypatia, the Colonial fleet had appeared almost in the spot where they wanted and they were being torn apart from a mix beam weapons and nuclear weapons. Since the Tau'ri had placed their ships below the Colonials over the main landing points their shields protected them from colonial fire.

At every point, it was an unfair fight which made it a perfect military operation, the colonial forces where being slaughtered without mercy. Battlestars and other ships where blown apart with beam fire while the eagle fighters with support from other crafts destroyed their viper force. It was totally one sides and that was how every military planner wanted it, this wasn't some sports match with rules of fair play this was a battlefield and the people who decided to wear the uniform should have understood that.

General Leong watched the battle unfolding with some dispassion, she watched like everyone else in real time as battlestars blow up in 3d color. Some of those battlestars carried up to 2,000 men and women in uniforms and they were in the most powerful ships in the colonies and those ships where being torn apart with ease. Some would say it was unfair, that they the Tau'ri where beating up on a small weaker force which had no business being on the same battlefield as them and they had a point, a slight point. The last colonial battlestar blew up when a beam weapon cut it in half and like that the Colonial navy was no more.

War, war was never fair and they weren't going to go down to the Colonial technological level to make it fair. Even with their lack of technological compared to the Tau'ri they could have put up a better fight if their tactics where better but the Colonials had a much more peaceful history compared to the people of Earth. Aside from the Cylon war the last major colonial war was over a 100 years ago and war was the equal to something akin to the Vietnam War in size then WW2 or WW1.

"How long until the Ragnarok is in position?" inquired General Leong as she turned her attention away from the destruction in front of her and toward the destruction to come.

"Not long, it will take longer for the President to decide if she wants to fire it." Added a fellow General "Can't say I would want to fire that thing, if the colonials force us to use it we could end up killing millions if not billions of people with that thing."

"True." Admitted Leong, she didn't want to use the Ragnarok on a full world, a city yes a world no. A city was a demonstration which would force them to surrender a world would be the last resort.

"Let us hope that using it on a city will make them realize that this fight is over, until they accept that we can't force them to give up." added an Admiral

"What is the saying, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink." added the General "This war was over the moment it began, it just took us time to gather or forces. Maybe if there were other powers in the Galaxy willing to back them they might have stood a chance."

"But they claimed that they had total control over the galaxy, they attempted to murder a Nox diplomat and the only group that could have possibly helped them would have been some Goa'uld but the Tok'ra got the last of them before we even founded Valhalla." stated the Admiral "They had no one that would have helped them. Let's just hope they will give up I am not totally sure."

"The Colonials will give up." countered General Leong as the other officers looked at her. "For the most part, Gememon and Sagiattorn may not surrender but the others are already on the edge and the Ragnarok will tip them over that edge."

"And what of those worlds?" inquired a General

"I would rather destroy no worlds but I would rather destroy 2 worlds compared to 11." Said General Loeng "If Sagittaron and Gememon don't fall in line then we will have to deploy the Ragnarok there."

In preparation for the Ragnarok's arrival over Caprica city flights of Eagle fighters, Tatia fighter bombers and Condor Bombers where carrying out a massive attack on Colonial defenses around the city. They didn't want any weapon to have a shot at the Ragnarok and so they went after everything that could possibly be a threat. At the top of their list of targets where any missile systems and anti-air defense system, luckily the Colonials where more than happy to stand and fight instead of running away or hiding in an ambush. They went after the defense with ease and within ten minutes of starting the operation the area was sanitized of all possible enemy threats to the Ragnarok.

The bombers and fighters were not the only Tau'ri aircraft that where fling over Caprica City, multiple recon aircraft called Ravens where doing the same thing. Only instead of hunting down enemy targets they were taking photos for after action comparisons so that military experts could study the effects of the Ragnorok. They would come in afterwards to take photos of the same area, so that they could have a before and an after photo. With that work done the Ravens and other crafts pulled back as the Ragnarok entered the atmosphere of Caprica. The ship dropped down into the atmosphere passing down to around 40,000 ft. which was around the cruising height of most passenger airliners on Earth until more advanced space capable craft came into civilian air market. With its massive size, it was clearly visible to the colonial people within miles of the city.

Onboard the Ragnarok the situation was tense but sure of their ability, the crew which was tinny compared to the size of the ship. Even though the Ragnarok was the size of a Missouri Class Battleship or a Yorktown Carrier the entire crew of the ship numbered only 50 people compared to the almost two thousand on a Battleship or a Carrier. The entire crew was located in the center part of the ship and it was in this part now that all of the crew took cover in.

Down on the surface the people of Caprica city looked up at this ship which was hovering over their heads. Some people began to open fire with pistols and rifles, everyone who fired knew that it was pointless but they did it anyhow.

The Ragnarok was under the command of a bright young Captain from Spain but he couldn't fire the only weapon the Ragnarok had. Because of safety concerns the main weapon on the Ragnarok couldn't be fired unless four keys where turned and a special code was given. While it took four keys to fire it only took two key to prepare the ship to fire and prime the weapon.

"Prepare the ship." ordered the Captain as he and the second officer moved to his command center on the bridge, it was out of reach of the other arming key. When both of them turned the key the ship began its arming process.

**On the outside the people of Caprica city watched as the ship began to unfold itself, the two long spires which came out of the center of the ship began to move.** One of the spires shot backwards until it was as far back as it was forward. Then the spires split into two and began to move out until it was 90 degrees from its starting point. When it was finished the ship had unfolded itself until it appeared from the surface as a + sign or an x.

Far away from Caprica City it was nearing midnight in Brasilia the Capital of Brazil and currently the Capital of the Tau'ri alliance. As part of the alliance the office of the President of the Tau'ri was switched between the 8 main powers of USA, Russia, PRC, Brazil, Great Britain, France, Germany and India. The US President held the first office of the President of the Tau'ri but that had now switched to the President of Brazil, next it would go to Great Britain and they make its way around the world before finally coming back to the US in 32 years. That was how the treaty was originally written however that was something that had come under criticism since it cut out power from smaller nations, all those issues would be debated later but at the moment the power to fire or not fire the Ragnarok rested in the hands of the Brazilian President.

"So, the Ragnarok is standing by?" inquired the Brazilian President as she sat in her office, around her were the leaders of all 8 major powers as well as the head of general assembly which was currently held by the Japanese Prime Minister. Along with them where military leaders from all the different nations but the one which spoke for them all was General O'Neill.

"Yes." confirmed General O'Neill as he double checked his computer, it confirmed that the Ragnarok had been put into standby mode. "The Ragnarok is ready."

"Can we really do this?" inquired the Prime Minister of Great Britain as she looked at the other world leaders in the room. "We would be unleashing possibly the most dangerous weapon in our history. Could this be seen as a war crime?"

"Possibly." Admitted the German Chancellor "However I don't see many other options, if we just go with a straight forward bombing campaign it would likely kill more people and unless we unleash the weapon on the entire planet the people in the blast area should in general be fine."

"But what if we have to use it on an entire planet, that could kill millions if not billions." Added the Indian President "However what choice do we have, we can't hold the 12 colonies of Kobol we don't have the man power to do that. We would have to turn to outside groups to help like the Cylons and that would just bring more issues then it is worth."

"And the Cylons are enslaving their intelligence Centurions that is something we haven't addressed with them because of the war, if we turned to them then they would have to build more centurions to hold the colonies." stated the Japanese Prime Minister "We have no real choice, we have given them every chance to surrender and now it is come to this. Just like how the two atomic bombs dropped on my nation in 1945 along with the firebombing campaign caused our leaders to finally admit that the war was over and surrender. So we must hope that this may be the same here."

Jack looked at the elder Japanese man, he didn't want to add that on the night before Emperor Hirohito broadcast the surrender there was an attempted coup to stop that from happening. So he didn't say anything. The Brazilian President looked around the room and saw every single one of them nodding their heads, however some did do it sadly.

"Alright, do it." ordered the Brazilian President as General O'Neill reached back and pulled a large briefcase out. It opened up to show a special computer pad, a DNA scanner, a keypad and a key hole. Everyone watched as General O'Neill broke a special seal and broke it open to show a data card. His eyes scanned down the 15 different codes before typing in the right code to arm the device. With his duty done he turned the pad over to the Brazilian President who pulled out a special key and placing one hand on the DNA scanner she turned the key. With that done the orders went out.

**Onboard the Missouri the flash traffic from Earth arrived within moments and General Leong was ready for it.** She confirmed the order and placed her own command key into a special panel and like that all outside confirmation codes where sent to the Ragnarok.

"**Flash Traffic!" yelled an officer on the Ragnarok as he looked at the computer in front of him. "Sir, we are go to fire, lowest setting target Caprica City."**

The lowest setting would effect an area just about the size of Manhattan Island but it couldn't fire right away, it had to charge. The charging sequence started with energy gathering at all four spire points, while it charged a central focusing dish lowered from the centurial area.

D**own below the Ragnarok in Caprica City the people looked up at the deadly man made star which was now over their city. **The people watched in horror as the blue energy gathered around the ship, seeing this caused one of three things to happen. Either people tried to attack the ship, shooting guns at it and even attempting to throw rocks at it all of which was pointless. The next thing people did was try to take cover in some way, either in buildings or some just where they stood, that too was a waste of energy. The last option was the one that most people tried, they ran. They got into cars, hopped onto bikes and simply ran, that was also pointless because the Ragnarok charging sequence for a small area was less than five minutes.

While the Ragnarok was getting ready the Hadrian class transports lowered themselves until they were just above the Ragnarok, they knew not to go below the ship which was basically now just a weapon's platform.

"Captain we are ready." reported the second officer

"Very well." said the Captain as he took a breath, he checked his own computer display to make sure everything was green and then he gave the order. Energy from all four points gathered at the centurial dish which opened even wider as the energy was focused into a giant ball of blue power. "Fire!"

With both he and the second officer turning keys the Ragnarok fired. It didn't fire a beam of energy straight down, instead it sent a wave of energy out in every direction aside from up. On the surface it didn't look like much a wave of semi see through every building and every human in the area. It passed over some of the most famous and important buildings in the Colonies, like the temple of Apollo, the statues of the Lords of Kobol in the center of the Colonial Mall, the Quorum building and others and it did nothing. For a moment, everyone was confused as the Colonials who were taking cover raised their heads and looked around, everything was fine.

Then they noticed it, the buildings began to melt away, breaking apart into dust and disappearing. It started at the top floor of the tallest buildings and made its way down quickly. The man and women on those upper floors who attempted to take cover up there soon found themselves transported in a beam a light to the surface. Even the larger animals like cats and dogs were transported down to the surface.

"What the frak?" inquired multiple people as they watched buildings which had stood for decades be destroyed within seconds without a trace. However matter can't be created nor destroyed it can only change and that it what was happening. The Ragnarok was a weapon based off technology from two different races, the Ancients and the Asgard. Using the same general set up as the Ancient weapon on Dakara which had destroyed the Replicators and mating it with Asgard recycling technology the Ragnarok was able to take all matter, in this case apart from organic matter within a certain area and recycle it. The newly transformed matter was then transported onto the Hadrian class ships where they reformed as blocks of metal that would be transported back to Valhalla for use in whatever they where needed in. That choice to take the material was hotly debated but in the end it was decided to take it as a form of war reparations.

The people of Caprica City watched as the Quorum building seemly turned to dust and disappeared before their eyes along with all the art and treasures inside. Same was happening with the Temple of Apollo and the Presidential mansion all of it was disappearing along with countless numbers of other buildings. Guns disappeared in their owners hands and aside from the cloths on their backs everything made by man was gone. Even the roads disappeared and unground the subway tunnels and sewer and power system was also destroyed. Here the Ragnarok's computers where programed to fill in the holes as it used some of the matter taken from the colonial buildings to fill it in with dirt. It took a while but in the end an area the size of Manhattan island which had once had one of the largest cities on Caprica and had multiple other large cities nearby had been returned to a state of nature as if humans where never there. The only sign of humanity where the millions of civilians and military personal who were now unarmed and standing around in surprise and confusion.

"Ragnarok firing sequence compete total death from firing is zero." reported the second officer "All civilians have been beamed to surface and are alive."

"From the weapon yes." confirmed the Captain "However will they understand the affects if we removed all technology from a world containing hundreds of millions of people? No modern farming, no medical technology and no weapons aside from sharpened sticks how many would die then?"

"Computer says between 85 and 95% of the population." stated the second officer "Let's see if they realize that and end this before we have to do this to whole planets."

**Well I hope you liked this chapter and what the Ragnarok weapon is and the leave of destruction that if can put out. Now I can see some people saying while the Ragnarok didn't kill anyone but as I said at the end of the chapter how many people would die if all modern technology and tool would suddenly disappear, keep that in mind of the damage that the Ragnarok can unleash. So until next time I ask that you keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	76. Chapter 76

**Chapter 76 Last Stand**

The Ragnarok floated over the now pristine land which had once held a city equal in population like Cape Town, South Africa was now devoid of all signs of human life aside from the humans which stood stunned in the grassy areas confused about what had happened. The sickest people had been beamed to the far edge of the effective area, with some luck they would be found by medical personal coming in from the un effective area. The Ragnarok then folded itself back into its transport mode and began to move into the next firing position, that area was over the city of Delphi and if ordered they would extend the effective area to as large as needed. The issues with that was that as the area increased the rate of return and safety dropped. Return basically meant the amount of mater that would be collected and transferred over to other ships for transport, the larger the area the less they actually took and instead just let it be changed into simple elements and compounds like Iron ore and water. The safety issue wasn't to the crew of the Ragnarok but to the people below because the larger the area attempting to beam people to safety was impossible. If the Ragnarok fired a planet wide firing then those unluckily people in skyscrapers and underground bunkers would be killed. The hope was that they wouldn't have to fire the Ragnarok because the death total would be extremely high after they fired the Ragnarok.

On Earth and the other four worlds currently under direct Tau'ri control the news companies where broadcasting up to the minute news from the battlefield. Their reporters had been imbedded into different military units to report on the battle and that is what they did. They sent the images of war back to the public and for the most part the public was gripped by the broadcasts. People stopped what they were doing and watched the scenes from the distance battlefield and that led to another type of reporting. More reporters where sent out to talk to the people in the street to get their mood and broadcast it to all five planets of the Tau'ri alliance, Earth, Mars, Venus, Lanagara and Valhalla. On top of those worlds the images, certain ones that was were being broadcast to the Colonies taking over their own news programs. What the Colonials saw both amazed and frightened them, causing a sense of defeat to spread out across the colonies.

**Unaware of what had happened to Caprica City a large group of Colonial soldiers which had spent the day running for the lives only to be told to stop on the edge of Lezbha readied for a fight.** There was only a battalion worth of soldiers which had been assigned to stop the Tau'ri advance and give the rest of the forces pulling out a chance to escape. That was around 800 soldiers most of whom where what remained of units decimated by Tau'ri fire, among those units where two young women who had been in Hypatia when the attack took place. Medea and Acacia had spent the whole night running for their lives and they had expected to spend the day in a rear-guard action protecting Lezbha as the might of the Colonial military advanced. That advanced not only had been beaten it had been smashed with no mercy and it was then the colonials who were sent running out of Lezbha.

"Think this time yesterday we were thinking about what night club we would spend our time at." Laughed Medea sadly as she and Acacia sat in one of the homes which butted up against the edge of the trench lines. She like her best friend had her back to a wall with her bolt action Sirri rifle resting on its but beside her.

"And now we are here." added Acacia with a sad laugh "And what was it six or seven months ago we had just finished school and had no idea who the Tau'ri where."

"We signed up to reclaim Kobol and pay for school and here we are about to die." stated Medea

"Our luck has held so far and who knows the Tau'ri must be at the end of their rope they haven't pushed forward in a while." Added Acacia as the sound of gunfire filled the air, neither of them reacted to the sound.

**Unknown to the two women and the other Colonials assigned to hold the line to cover the retreating Colonial army the Tau'ri was letting them go.** They wanted the bulk of whatever forces remained in Lezbha to get out of the city and into flat open ground where they could be destroyed with ease. The Tau'ri tanks and soldiers also had to stop their advance to resupply, this process was much easier than it had been in the past. Fueling a tank or any other Tau'ri military vehicle was very simple as they took out a long cylinder about a meter long and put in a different one. This was a refined Naquadah fuel rod which took six hours to recharge in a special recharge device but it was just as easy to switch out rods. It was taking longer for the crews to resupply the tanks and other vehicles which had pulled back with shells and bullets then fuel. Similar but much smaller fuel rods were also located on everyone's power armor which needed to be changed out.

There was of course some unites in contact with the Colonials but a lot of the units where sitting still for the moment and getting some much needed rest and something to eat. In one of the forward outposts only a couple hundred yards away from the Colonial front lines three Tau'ri soldiers one from India, a Spaniard and an American. All three of them had their helmets off and rifles beside them, their helmets where within reach incase of a gas attack but it was hard to eat with a full faced helmet on.

"Cracker?" inquired the Spaniard as he offered his Indian brother in arms some crackers.

"Sure." Said the Indian as he took the cracker before taking a bit of something that passed for roasted chicken from his MRE. "I can't wait for this to be over."

"Me too, they say this food is better than the old MREs but they still aren't the best." Added the American

"So what are you going to do when this is all over?" inquired the Spaniard

"I got some land coming to me either in the Tyrhea or Nova region of Mars." Said the American as he used his small computer to pull up a map of the terraformed Mars. Mars unlike Earth had a single large massive ocean which covered most of the Northern part of the planet with the bulk of the land in the southern area. Mars and Venus where in the process of being Terraformed and had already been transplanted with animals and plant life and the first communities where going up. He pulled up a picture of a plot of land. "I am going to make my own farm, my family had a farm in Illinois since before it even became a state. I figure while my older brother takes that that over I'll start a new one. Hopefully find some women who wouldn't mind having a kid or three with me. What about you? You going to stay on Earth or strike it out across the galaxy."

"Well I took the land option too so yes, I am leaving Earth." confirmed the Spaniard, that was one of the payment option that people were given when the enlisted, either a normal pay or a reduce pay but with land given to them on either Mars, Venus or Valhalla. Even though Valhalla was the most established it was actually Mars which was the most wanted location for people from Earth. "My Brother works for an urban development company on Venus, I have a job waiting for me when this is done, someone has to build all the new homes people will need."

"I am going off world as well, likely Valhalla with all that open space it will be a lot different than my childhood in New Delhi. Maybe open a restaurant and like you said start of a family, I got married before we started our attack so I don't have to find a wife." Stated the Indiana "I know a lot of people from my home nation doing that, going out and spreading out. We have worlds to fill now."

"And we will fill them fast." Said a new voice as all three turned to see an officer standing there in her own combat uniform. "Maybe you all missed it in newspapers they are predicting a population boom equal to or greater than the burst after WW2 in America only for the population of Earth and Lanagara. Mars, Venus and Valhalla will likely be full in twenty to thirty years and that will only go down in time if more worlds join us like Lanagara did."

"Damn, well then we will just have to spread out more." added the American as the officer's communication radio began going off. She raised her hand to her ear and listened for a bit before turning to the three soldiers.

"We are supposed to launch that attack in 10 minutes be ready." ordered the Officer

"Yes, Ma'am." said the Indian as he put on his own helmet, the seals automatically going off to prepare for any gas attack. "Let's get this done with."

**For the General who had assigned to defend Lezbha was now sitting in the front seat of a civilian SUV while what was left of his command was either back in Lazbha in a holding action that would kill them or around him in everything ranging from civilian dump trucks to the handful of military vehicles he had left.** The bulk of the vehicles he had pressed into duty were civilian school buses which were full of solders.

"Sir, when we reach the ocean…if I may how will we cross it?" inquired his driver

"We will take anything that floats to cross it." stated the General as he looked down at his map. If he could cross the ocean he could link up with another command which should still be intact. Since the Tau'ri wouldn't be dumb enough to land forces on two different sides of an ocean at the same time. The ground command there should be intact. The sun was starting to shrink below the horizon, only a few hours ago he was overseeing a parade of his own in down town Lezbha which while smaller than the one in Hypatia was still large. Now that place was under Tau'ri control and his command was all but broken.

"The head of a broken spear can be attached to a new shaft and used to kill the enemy." quoted the General from the way of the Spear and the Sword which was the colonial version of the Art of War. "We need to reform and then we can take this war to the Tau'ri."

He didn't know that he stood no chance of reaching the sea, the two flanks of Tau'ri armor which had been moving around Lezbha to encircle the city had not stopped when they left a gap to let the Colonial army escape instead they had raced across the grass land and linked up with the leading elements of an armored unit from Langara coming up from Hypatia. They had the Colonial army now encircled and out in the open and they were about to make themselves known. The Leopards moved forward with their lower bodied they moved through the tall fields of corn like crops which were extremely common. From above it looked as if the Leopard tanks where moving toward their prey like their African name shakes. The group of vehicles full of colonial soldiers in full uniforms where clearly visible and they were coming right into the ambush.

The tanks where not the only vehicles in this fight, moving beside them where the Puma recon vehicles and Cougar APCs, even a handful of Lions but since they were taller than the crops they were staying back to stay out of sight. No reason to alert the enemy that they were entering a trap. All of them where supported with multiple aircrafts ranging from Eagle fighters to Adder attack helicopters. Once they eliminated this force they would have linked up all the landing zones into a single massive landing area, after that they could spread out and if need be take the world. It was hope that wouldn't be needed and since all the commanders now knew about the Ragnarok which was breaking news on every channel that was unlikely. Still all of them had work to do and now was the time. The Tau'ri moved forward. Here the Colonials did nothing but help them, they were in vehicles moving down the road with no scouts in front of them or to either side of the convoy. Their enemies where behind them not on either side of them.

The Leopard's powerful systems linked with the ships overhead, they could guild them to their targets even if they couldn't get a visual on them through the thick fields of colonial corn. The onboard heat vision helped but seeing everything from above allowed them to line up on the targets easier. In truth it wasn't a full circle to help prevent friendly fire only one side of the Leopards where going to fire the rest stayed back waiting for any Colonials who came there way when they attempted to run from the attacking group.

The Leopards lined up their shots and the gunners took careful aim at the targets that they could only see through thermal sites. Then the loaders rammed home high explosive rounds, the enemy was in civilian vehicles for the most part and no reason to use armor piercing rounds on unarmored vehicles.

As one they fired and turned the road into a killing ground. The vehicles never knew what happened to them as they went up in giant fireballs. At the same moment Jaguar field, mobile artillery fired from their concealed positions behind the Leopard. In the past these large field guns were lucky to hit in the same neighborhood as their targets now they were as pin point as sniper rifles. The shells began to fall and followed moments later by the air power firing their own missiles and swooping down from the sky for the kill.

The colonial general had no idea what was happening, he had thought he and his force had escaped the field of battle only to find that his battered force under attack. He had no real idea where the enemy was and he never had a chance to give any real orders. Human instinct took over as everyone tried to run, since the fire was coming from the south some of the vehicles who survived the first attack turned to the North and went off-roading into the field. When the General saw them run and then saw them explode as a tank shell came into the front.

"Move forward they are on both sides!" yelled the General over the wireless as the tiny factions of vehicles that where still moving ran for their lives. As they ran they left the dead and injured behind, there was no time to help them. They gunned it forward pushing each vehicle as fast as they could, there was a small overpass ahead, if they got over that they may stand a slight chance. They drove to the top only to stop, the General's and everyone else eyes widened. Before them stretched out over about 2 miles where dozens of Tau'ri tanks and countless numbers of APCs, recon vehicles and soldiers all of whom were waiting for them.

"By the Lords of Kobol." Said the General as he looked all around him, the Tau'ri had him encircled but they weren't firing, yet.

"Sir, what are your orders?" inquired his driver with fear in his voice.

"It's over." Said the General as he got out of the SUV and looked around at what remained of his command. "Get it over the wireless, we are surrendering."

The situation back in Lezbha was beyond desperate as the two young women from Libran fought to keep every inch of ground, but the Tau'ri advance was next to unstoppable. They fired their bolt action rifles which fired 50 caliber bullets containing a small explosive charge which would turn a cylon into scrap metal after a few hits seamed to do nothing against the Tau'ri tanks and other vehicles. So they tried to focus on the infantry however unlike the Cylons who stood up tall in battle and stood out in their chrome and golden armor, the Tau'ri used camo which blended in with the background.

"Do you know where that fire is coming from?" yelled Acacia as she loaded her bolt action rifle with a five round clip, bullets where hitting just above the window that they were by.

"No idea!" yelled Medea back as she fired through a large hole in the wall toward a house across the street, she knew Tau'ri where in there but had no idea where in there they were. Suddenly she felt the ground shake and the air filled with dust.

"They just fired a tank shell into the next-door house!" yelled a another solider at another window.

"We need to take down that tank!" yelled Acacia, then as if someone was answering her prayer five Sagittarian members judging from the patches on their uniforms ran out of a house and toward the tank. Four of them where cut down by machine gun fire but the fifth dove under the tank and detected a bomb. A tank armor is always the thinnest, to the amazement of the colonials the tank didn't go up in a fireball, instead two large panels blew out of the top. The colonials had no idea that these where safety panels that blew off to make sure ammo didn't cook off and hurt the crew. The tank was disabled for sure but the crew inside was still alive and hit the emergency beacon and was beamed out.

**The location of the destroyed tank was sent to air command and two nearby Taita fighter bombers made sharp turns and headed toward the area. **On the nose of one of those birds was a painting of a young woman in red with a scythe in her hands.

"Command confirmed order we have the target danger close." said Colonel Rose Ryan, her Taita fighter bomber had carried out the nuclear strike on Aquaria which through a series of unforeseen chain reactions caused the whole planet to become uninhabitable. For this she had gotten praised up to the heavens even as she saw that flash of light in her nightmares. She and her wingman flew upward and did a barrel roll so that they pointed nose down at their target. A line of house on the edge of the city, on the other side of which was the trench system which was supposed to stop enemies from breaking into the city. A missile could have been used from their old positions to hit the houses but given the angle of attack the missile could have clipped the top of one of the other homes where their own forces where in.

The two fighter bombers rolled over and dove for the deck, the sound of their airframes screeching through the air ripped over the sound of battle. Someone had thought to put a sirens on them like the Germans had done with their Stuka, the screech of them caused fear of in the colonials. They aimed their aircraft along onto the target and then released their bombs, the bombs where guided but the easier the job the less likely they were to hit their own forces.

Suddenly over the sound of battle came a load siren cry, the colonial forces in the houses including Acacia and Medea had no idea what it was. They had heard that sound all day but still had no idea what caused it only that moments after that sound their was a huge explosion. There answer came when a bomb came crashing into their homes.

"By the Lords of…" started Acacia as beside her Medea had just started cursing. Neither of them had a chance to finish before a powerful explosion caused everything around them to blow apart.

Across the road the Tau'ri solders smiled as they watched a line of homes go up in a powerful explosion.

"Advance!" yelled their commander as they moved forward even as pieces of the house were still falling down on them. They moved over the mound which had once been civilian homes as they pressed their attack.

Acacia's ears where ringing and her whole body hurt, her vision was blurry as she tried to stand and fight but couldn't her body wasn't listening to her but it still hurt which was a good sign. She remembered something her pyramid coach had said in school and she could flex her toes and move her fingers so she ok there. Somehow she managed to roll over and look around her, she was on top of a mound of rubble where she had once been in a house, she could see some of the other people who had been in the house with her, somewhere screaming in pain others were clearly dead. She could see her best friend a couple of feet away from her and both of Medea's feet where on top of a different pile. That is when it hit her, her best friend Medea who had talked about going out dancing before this all started now didn't have any feet at all. One foot was gone from the knee down and the other only at the ankle. She reached back for her medical pack only to have a hard boot come down on her back making her scream in pain.

"You are playing in the wrong play yard kiddy." said a voice as Acacia looked up to see the darkened visor of a Tau'ri battle armor. Behind it she could make out a boy's face, he was pretty good looking face. That thought confused her for a moment as to why she was even thinking that when he was pointed his rifle at her. She turned away from the face and looked down the darkened barrel wondering if she would see the flash that would end her. The flash didn't come, she could see other Tau'ri moving past her.

"My friend." whispered Acacia as the Tau'ri lifted his gaze away from her keeping his foot pressing down hard on her back. "Please help her."

The man tapped a flat pad on his arm before reaching behind him and pulling a pair of plastic restraining ties and with one quick movement he restrained her before moving forward to her friend. He then pulled out a pack and ripped it open, he poured out a silver liquid which almost instantly stopped the blood from pouring out of Medea.

"Medic!" yelled the Tau'ri solider as moments later two men dressed in the same battle armor but without weapons and with a red cross painted on their shoulders and the top fronts of their helmets appeared.

She wanted to stay, to stay with her friend but the solider came back and ripped her off the ground and took her away, her fight was over and judging from the number of Tau'ri heading through the gap anyone who was still fighting would soon either be in the same state she was or dead.

**Across the small ocean, Secretary of Defense Cain stood before a map which was covered with red marks, the Tau'ri where rolling over the every counter attack that the ground forces where throwing at them.** Even the forces outside the combat area, places that would have been totally safe during the Cylon war was under heavy fire from the Tau'ri air power. The railroad lines where being bombed into oblivion, roadways where not fairing much better and reports of major power outages and public unrest was spreading across the world. Then on top of it came the reports about what the Tau'ri did to Caprica City, the power that the Tau'ri had frightened the public. Before whenever the Tau'ri did something the public could wrap their minds around it somewhat, their nuclear weapons which were far more powerful than anything the Colonials ever dreamed of was somewhat understandable because they were nuclear weapons. The beaming technology was something the public couldn't understand as well but it had yet to be shown to destroy a city.

All that was causing the public to loss hope and to panic and when people panic chaos follows. Helen Cain wasn't running around but a look of defeat was all over her face, the colonial navy had been brushed aside like insects and destroyed. The marines and army where beaten and she wasn't even angry she was in shock, she could see what would happen next. Either they would surrender like Libran did or they would be turned back into stone age savages and what would stop the Cylons from sweeping down and destroying them all.

She never heard them, she never heard the gunfire or the calls of alarm only when the door to the command area burst opened followed by a blind flash as a flashbang went off. She didn't react to the blinding light or the noise, she didn't move or raise her eyes off the map as the bullets started flying around her. Only when the map became covered with blood and brain matter did she look up to see a dozen or so Tau'ri solders dressed in their power armor standing there. All around her where the dead or wounded command staff, the general which had been in overall command of the whole world was no headless his body halfway on the table.

"Cain, we meet again." Said the head Tau'ri as he lifted off his helmet to show the face of the former prisoner, Drugov. He looked slightly older but it was clearly him, the man she had put her knife through his hand to get to talk. "It has been a while."

"To you it must have been longer if that broadcast on Spiro's grandson is true." Said Cain as she looked at her former prisoner who now stood across from her over a blood covered map table.

"Yes, however I still have the scar from your knife." Stated Drugov as he flexed one of his hands. "I could have had it totally cleared up but I wanted to keep it as a reminder. I have gotten multiple shots of Vodka because of the story."

"This war is over." stated Cain

"It was over the moment your forces attack Valhalla, it was only a matter of time." countered Drugov "I have orders to arrest you."

"And what will happen after that, will I be killed?" inquired Cain

"Sadly no, you had nothing to do with the nuclear strike on Valhalla but you did help arrest Colonel O'Neill and what you did to me as your prisoner, that will get you at least a few years in jail." explained Drugov, he didn't add that even having the death penalty was a matter of some concern among the different nations which made up the Tau'ri. A compromise was that only in case of mass murder, terrorism and use of WMD did a person quality for the death sentence. The colonial leadership who sent the ships which had brought nuclear death to the civilians of Valhalla meet those requirements, Cain didn't.

"I see." said Cain as she looked at the Tau'ri special forces member. "In that case may, can I have your knife."

"What?" inquired one of the other soldiers

"For personal use, I can't surrender. I would go for mine but it is beside my gun and that would be a threat to you." stated Cain as Drugov nodded his head and pulled his combat knife out of its holder and pushed it across the table. "Thank you."

"Sir, our orders are to take her alive." countered another solider as Cain gripped the now blood covered knife.

"I'll take the heat for this." explained Drugov as Cain lifted the knife to her throat and with one quick movement ran the blade across her throat. She fell down and just lied their with her blood coming out of her wound and covering the floor. The Tau'ri knew she was dead when their life sign detectors senses on less life sign. With that done Drugov walked over and reclaimed his knife, and with one movement he took Cain's knife from her belt. It was the same knife which had she had driven into his hand all those years ago, it was now his.

**President Adar sat at the head of a table with watched passed as a Cabinet and senior members of the Quorum.** They had all seen the images broadcast from the Tau'ri news which showed that Caprica City had been whipped off the map, however it wasn't as if it had disappeared in a nuclear blast it was gone. Nothing was left and aside from some very confused people everyone who was in the effective area of the ship was alive.

"A whole city destroyed but without the use of a nuclear weapon? How is that even possible?" inquired President Adar "And nothing is left behind aside from the people? Could this be some fake news broadcast from the Tau'ri?"

"Sir, we have confirmed that what the Tau'ri are broadcasting is true." Confirmed the Quorum member from Caprica to the former mayor of Caprica City who had risen to the office of the President. "Caprica City is gone, everything that was built by man is gone."

"How?" inquired another member of the Quorum. "A whole city just disappearing, is not possible?"

"We have no idea how, but everything is gone down to even the serage lines and trashcans. Aside from the cloths on their backs and things like metal knee replacements inside a persons body there is no sign that humans ever touched the land." Stated the Caprican Member, he like the other colonials didn't know that was due to the firing setting on the Ragnarok, it ignored human made items inside the body and within three inches of the human skin. This was due not because of any miltary reasons but due to PR reasons, while whipping out everyone's cloths and showing to the colonials the true extent of that weapon it looked bad on camera to have a bunch of nude people and so the Tau'ri didn't do it.

"But the people are still alive?" inquired the member from Gememon

"Yes." Confirmed the Caprican member as his Gememon counterpart smiled at the news.

"What the frak are you smiling about?" snapped the Caprican member "Our Capital city is gone and you are smiling."

"Well then what have we really lost, nothing really. All those people are still in the fight." stated the Gememon member as the Caprican member slammed his hand on the table.

"Nothing? Nothing our city is gone and the same weapon is floating over Delphi and after that who knows what city they will hit next." Countered the Caprican member

"All of them." added one of the army advisors as the sound of a lighter going off caused everyone to look at him. He had a smoke in his mouth and was closing the lighter, his head was down and he had a look of pure defeat on his face. "They will move around Caprica until every part of the world has been hit and then we will have billions of people on a world with no infrastructure, no way to bring food from the country side into the city and Caprica doesn't have the farmland to support the population on that world. Hundreds of millions will die."

"Well we can ship food from…" started the Gememon member

"And where will we get these ships? We have no ships." Added the Navy advisor like his counterpart in the Army, he had the look of defeat on his face. "We lost the entire colonial navy, our civilian ships are being hunted down like animals we will not any ships capable of space flight outside of Raptors within a few hours and even those will be gone in time. Also what happens when they finish with Caprica and move on to Gememon, then to Picon until the most advanced tool we have is a couple of rocks and sticks. We have lost this war."

"You defeatist!" yelled the Sagittarian member

"How dare you dishonor the uniform by saying that!" yelled the Gememon member

"But he is saying the truth and the truth is something we can't hide from here." Added the Virgon member "We have lost this war, we need to accept that."

"Never!" yelled the Sagittaron member "We would turn our backs on the lords of Kobol if we give up now."

"How?" inquired the member from Tauron which surprised the member from Sagittarian. The Tauron member like almost every politician from Tauron she was a former member of the military. "How, how do we defeat the Tau'ri? You can keep saying that the Lords of Kobol will give us victory but they haven't yet and we need to be realist. We have lost."

"I can't believe this." Snapped Vice President Spiro "We are talking about surrendering? Do you know what that would means."

"Yes, that we would have to give in to Tau'ri demands which would hurt the colonies how much worse then what keeping up this war will do?" inquired the Tauron member "This isn't the Cylon war where they were massacring us in an attempt to kill us all, the Tau'ri have a list of demands which would not end up with our death. We need to consider giving in to their demands and when weighing the price of how many people will die is accepting their demands that bad?"

"Never, we can never surrender to their unreasonable demands." stated the religious advisor "It would be an upfront to the Lords of Kobol to surrender our rights to Kobol and to allow the unbelievers to keep it and the other demands are equally as unreasonable. Accept other false religions among us that is putting rot into our culture."

"A culture that may not live through what the Tau'ri are doing to us." Countered the Aerilon member as she closed her eyes. "Aside from my world which is the bread basket of the colonies which world can produce enough food to support their population? With the exception of Picon which can pull fish from their oceans none of them, and that is with advanced technology without it even we couldn't support our population. Billions of people will die and that is just from lack of food, throw in medicine and just plain violence and we are looking at only a tiny fraction of our people living on and attempting to rebuild and who is to say what sort of worlds they would rebuild."

"What about bring the Tau'ri down to the surface and then beating them there, death by a thousand cuts." stated the Sagittarian member.

"And how do we do that when they can whip out whole cities without even damaging the planet?" Stated the member from Virgon "Given the range of their weapon how long would it take to destroy every sign of our culture from all our worlds?"

It took a few moments and some math on the computer but the likely range of time came up.

"For Caprica it would take between 2 and 3 days, for the rest of the colonies depending on if they mess with firing it over oceans all our planets would be devolved of all signs of us within a week." Answered the intelligence expert, he didn't know that he was wrong and that the Tau'ri if they wanted to them could fire the Ragnarok on a whole planet but the cool down time was a while. He was right on the time if the Tau'ri did do it city by city, it would take them 14 days which was two weeks to the Tau'ri but since the colonial week was 14 days it was only a single week for them.

Facing the destruction of their entire civilization within 14 days was something none of them wanted to even grasp but that is what they were facing now. Nuclear destruction was something they all knew about and knew what would happen to them and even then, unless the Tau'ri used nuclear weapons on a grand scale there would be some places left untouched by the blast and radiation. This weapon was different, it basically reset their entire culture all the history, all their achievements everything gone. If they allowed that to happen then how long would it be until the people of the 12 colonies rediscovered some basic technologies, how many generations would pass until they had electric lights again and how many more until they reached out into space. Thousands of years at the least and when that happened again who could tell how much of their culture would have changed or even if it would anywhere near to what they had now.

"The Lords of Kobol will not let that happen to us." snapped the Religious Advisor "This is a test of faith from them, a test by Ares the Lord of War to see if we will give up on our faith when the going gets rough."

"Or could it be a test from Athena Goddess of Wisdom to see when we know that we have to accept facts as they are?" countered the member from Cancercon as the more religious members glared at him. "It is hard to understand what the will of the Lords of Kobol are but we shouldn't, no we can't allow what we believe they may be doing to guild our actions. We must accept reality, and that is that we have loss."

"And if we surrender, we will die." added the Sagittarian member as he looked at President Adar who was just sitting in his chair a semi blank expression on his face. "The Tau'ri want to put the men and women who ordered the launch of that force to Kobol on trial for a nuclear strike, do you really think it will be fair? Do you really think they wouldn't just line you up against a wall and put a bullet in your head or hang you from a rope?"

For a long moment no one said anything as the President just sat there looking at the top of the table and all the maps which covered it. It was covered with red xs which showed known Colonial units which had been whipped out and destroyed. Each X was dozens of lives at the least and thousands of lives at the most, all of them had been under his command in a distance fashion.

"Is there any good news?" inquired Adar trying to find something. "Did any battlestars fall on the Tau'ri while they were being slaughtered?"

"No, any battlestars that came close to hitting where blown apart into smaller bits maybe some of the falling wretched did hit someone but nothing of note. The only ship which appears to have hit the ground semi intact was the Galactical but the point of impact on that was outside the combat zone so the Tau'ri never shot it up." Stated the intelligence officer "Other than that nothing got through and our viper force was cleared from the sky with ease, we may have taken a handful of their fighters with us but it was totally one sided."

"The Tau'ri just don't play fair, they are not fighting honorable and…" started the Sagittarian member only to stop when the Navy advisor raised his hand.

"That is true but I can't tell you all now what they would say about that…" said the Navy Advisor "They would say "So what?" we have made so many assumptions about the Tau'ri, we thought they would fight the same way we do but they don't. They fight with speed, speed which we thought impossible and they are beating us up like a schoolyard bully would do and there is no teacher to stop them from doing so."

"So there is no hope?" inquired Adar

"There is always hope." Admitted the Army advisor "But unless an act of the Lords of Kobol happen then no there is no way to win this war?"

"What about a battle?" inquired Adar as the Army advisor blinked.

"Sir?" inquired the Advisor

"What we need is a victory, a single victory to knock the Tau'ri back and…" started the President before stopping for a moment.

"And then with that defeat we can rally our forces and retake the offensive?" advised Vice President with some hope in his voice only to have the President shake his head.

"No, so that we are in a better position to come to more acceptable terms with the Tau'ri." Stated the President sadly. "Maybe we can arrange something that will allow us to get something out of it, maybe we can arrange for transport for our people to visit Kobol."

"Visit?" inquired the Priest with distain in his voice. "Kobol is our home, we don't need permission to visit our home."

"In a perfect world yes, but we do not live there and we have to accept that we…we have loss Kobol." Said the Tauron member with tears in her eyes, even a harden warrior cried over the lost of the religious birthplace and true home of humanity. "We need to worry about saving what we have left."

"Is there any place where we can maybe gain a victory?" inquired Adar

"No sir." admitted the Navy officer "Not in space, we have no ships outside of some Phalanx patrol ships around Virgon and Leonis, but none of those ships have FTL capabilities and that is the one system that the Tau'ri haven't hit yet. That meant that they are out of this war until the Tau'ri decide to take that system away from us and those ships will not be able to stop them from doing so with ease. Then they will control space over all of our worlds."

Adar turned toward the army advisor looking for an answer.

"Tauron held the bulk of our military strength on the ground because we were building up for an invasion of Kobol but the Tau'ri have broken our forces there and they aren't giving us any time to reform and since they control space we can't bring in reinforcements on top of the fact that they can fire down on us." stated the army advisor "And with that weapon of theirs it will only be a matter of time until there is no reinforcements for is to bring in."

"One thing I don't get is why didn't they use this city eraser sooner?" inquired the Virgon Quorum member "Why launch an invasion of all why not use that?"

"They didn't really have a choice when it came to Tauron that is." added the military advisor "Look how they cleared the area around Caprica City of all threats before launching their attack, the ship must be a glass cannon if you will. They cleared the threats and moved in, well that will work on every world but Tauron. Tauron was so built up with military forces they had to go in on the ground to clear it out before they could think of deploying that thing over Tauron."

"So there is nothing we can do to retake the offensive?" inquired the Tauron member of the Quorum

"No, there is nothing we can do….it's over, we lost." Stated the army advisor before turning to his president. "Sir, I recommend that we contact the Tau'ri and order our units to stand down and surrender."

"I would recommend the same but we have no real navy anymore to surrender." Stated the Navy advisor. All eyes were on the President, he was torn with the bulk of the Colonial worlds pulling toward ending this war but the more religious weren't going to give up the fight and if they did surrender he would die. He like so almost everyone else had no death wish to everyone's amazement he laughed a bit.

"Think all of this started because some raptor stumbled upon the Tau'ri setting up an outpost and then Cain had to go start shooting at them." Stated Adar with a sad laugh. "Even then we had a chance, but we…we were too sure of ourselves, so instead of entering an age when the 13 branches of mankind are finally reunited as one we are entering an age where 12 of the 13 branches have been beaten down by the 13th."

Everyone around the table lowered their heads in shame, tears where flowing from some eyes.

"Mr. President I take that you are going to surrender?" inquired Vice President Spiro

"I am going to open talks to see if we can surrender in some honorable way." Stated Adar with a shake of his head. "I just hope that those none believers aren't too hard on us."

"If I may, can we each contact our local worlds and get the other members of the Quorum and our local world governors onboard with this." Requested Spiro looking at the Sagittarian and Gememon Quorum members. "We need to prepare the people."

"We can't wait for long if we do then more people will die." countered the member from Tauron "But yes, we need to inform the leadership."

"One hour." Stated the President "I need to prepare what I will say when I address the public."

**Well I hope you liked this chapter, the war is almost over. I would like to thank everyone who reviewed and I ask that you keep reading. Now I must travel this weekend for Easter so that will cut into my time to writing, so the next chapter will be delayed slightly. I hope you understand. Now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	77. Chapter 77

**Chapter 77 Blood and Horror  
**

The word went out from the hidden command bunker on Virgon toward all the colonies, it went out over so called secreted communication lines but those lines had been broken into long ago by the Tau'ri intelligence services. So even before the news was in the hand of the local world governors and military leaders it was in the hands of General Leong and other Tau'ri commanders. She scanned the report and looked around at her fellow officers who were all gathered around the table, they had been talking about the after effects of the Ragnarok, the before and after photos spoke for themselves but they were still discussing it. No one noticed that she was no longer listening to the technician explaining how it could be used to clear the colonials and how long it would take if they expended the area of effect, then she raised her hand, instantly everyone shut up and looked at her.

"My fellow officers it would appear that the Colonials have finally seen the light." Reported General Leong as stood up and put her hands behind her back. "We have decoded a message from the Colonial Command bunker, their president is going to go on live TV in about an hour and order his units to stand down so that he can enter talks with us."

Instantly everyone was out of their seats and celebrating, it was one of those moments where the rules and conduct of command structures was pushed aside by human nature. The multiple Generals, Admirals and other high ranking officers all smiled and shook each other hands, multiple people even hugged each other and pat each other on the back. They had planned this operation out for years, they have trained the men and women under their command and had dealt with so much and now just over 24 hours after the 1st shell was fired from the hill of Heroes into Hypatia it was over, they had won. Even General Leong smiled at the news but the Tigress was as always reserved.

"We must still proceed as if the Colonials aren't surrendering." ordered General Leong as the meeting came back together. "I want the landing zones united and I want to keep hitting targets until the colonials broadcast their surrender however our forces need not hurry, it is better to be safe now then to take the last bullet in a victories war."

"Yes, Ma'ma." Stated a General

"I'll send orders to our ships to hold off on any unneeded attacks." Added the Admiral as General Leong nodded her head in confirmation.

"I do want those ships to be ready to attack if the Colonials try anything or they do not accept an unconditional surrender." Ordered General Leong as she took a deep breath. She like everyone in this room, maybe even everyone in the Tau'ri invasion force knew that the only terms that would be accepted would be total unconditional surrender of the 12 colonies of Kobol. Unlike the massive General Leong and the other Generals and Admirals in this room and the other command ships knew the general outline that the peace treaty would take.

Aside from the already stated demands that the colonies accept freedom of and from religion. Such as the arrest of key government/military officials who had taken part in the nuclear strike on Valhalla and the declaration that Valhalla/Kobol belonged to the Tau'ri who were free and never part of the colonies of Kobol there were other demands that would be impressed upon them. But those where issues for the conference table, her job was to force the Colonials there and in as bad as state as possible so that they could get all they wanted.

"Our biggest concern with the coming peace will be dealing with the Sagittarians and Gemenon, those two worlds will be where any uprisings or threats to us will come from." added a General

"Agreed and who says that the Colonials will enforce our conditions most of all the religious elements on them." stated another General before turning to General Leong "I recommend that we still go forward with our planned raid on Sagittarian."

"That would put civilians at risk but yes that may need to be done." agreed General Leong as she placed her hand under her chin. She thought about it for a couple of moments before nodding her head. "Agreed, make sure the raiders don't shoot the people they are trying to save."

"I should add that the guards will be civilians not military, we would be technically killing civilians." Added the legal expert. "That being said, they are guards in a semi-military prison and would we be saying the same thing if the Nazi's used civilian guards in their camps? Not likely."

"So what you are saying is that some people may consider it a slight crime but most people will not bat an eye and it is more of a thing for talking heads on TV?" inquired General Leong as the lawyer nodded his head. She turned back to the special forces commander. "Green light."

**The special forces commander nodded his head before tapping a few commands into computer pad. That pad was linked into the Missouri's computer system and after a check to make sure that the command came from an authorized user the message was sent to the Battleship Shiva which was moving into orbit around Sagittarian. There the command was sent to General Raj-Singh and to multiple small attack teams spread across Sagittarian.**

Eagle fighters and other aircraft dove into the atmosphere their jets screaming as they spread out over the mountainous world of Sagittarian. They were armed not only with air-to-air missiles and air-to-ground but with Harm anti-radar missiles, these missiles where designed to go after radar systems or as the colonials call it Dradis. The colonial military had dealt with anti-dradis missiles however their method to deal with it was to turn off their systems for a moment to confuse Cylon missiles turning them dumb so they would loss all tracking. They tried that with the Tau'ri missiles however the missiles just stayed locked on the last location. Within moments the colonial dradis network was knocked down.

After the Dradis systems went down the bombers and fighter bombers went down and began to bomb targets ranging from weapon factories to tunnels. Tunnels through the mountains that covered most of Sagittarian was a major target for the Tau'ri since that would limit movement around the planet.

While the bombs where falling, the Tau'ri ships in orbit fired beam weapons on the larger targets but even here the Tau'ri had another goal that needed to be done. Multiple Owl and Pelican transports took off and headed toward three remote places around the planet as a rescue mission began.

The distance sound of explosions could be heard as members of the 707th Special Mission Battalion from South Korea where spread over three locations across the planet along with Gurkha forces and in one location a Wraith. Sagittarian was the most religious of the worlds with laws about faith that would make some places in the galaxy seam liberal by comparison.

One of the more inhuman thing in the eyes of the Tau'ri was the re-educational work camps spread out in three places on the planet. Here people from Sagittarian who had committed religious crimes would be taken. The other colonies looked the other way and allowed this because it kept Sagittarian peaceful and they only enforced it on people from Sagittarian. It was one of the camps where the Spiro family would have gone if they had been discovered to be worshiping a single God or any other religion before they defected to the Tau'ri. There where over 10,000 people in these camps and that was about to change.

"Are we in position?" inquired the leader of the 1st assault group.

"We are." confirmed the second in command as he looked at Todd who like the others had taken cover in the rock face, below them was a large stone quarry where the camp was located in. The people in there would be reeducated in the faith and their "sins" would be cleaned out by hard labor for a certain amount of time depending on their "sins". The worse sinners went here and the other two location, those who actively believed in another God, those who committed lesser offensives in the eyes of the religious police where sent to other camps for lesser amount of time, sometimes only a day or two.

Those camps where not the target today these where, there was even children in the camp to be reeducated along with their parents. The Tau'ri knew under Sagittarian law children where owned by their parents and that went all the way up, grandparents owned grandchildren and so on. So some of the smaller children where likely in the hands of faithful grandparents while their sinner parents worked. Since the grandparents and the smaller children would be spread out across the planet it would be impossible to hit them all, so that would have to wait.

"Remember no killing civilians." explained the South Korean commander to Todd who only laughed.

"With so many of these foolish Religious guards around I will have more fun with them then with the civilians." countered Todd as he moved off toward a large barracks where the Guards and some prisoners would be. The religious guards being religious guards carried the holy weapons of a spear, shield and short sword. They didn't carry guns and while a sword may be threatening to an unarmed civilian to South Korean commandos who had trained for years to first liberate North Korean Slave Labor camps and then for this mission it was almost laughable.

Once the teams were in place, they opened fire, not just the team at the quarry but the other camps as well. They didn't even attempt to hide their attack, a group of snipers and marksmen up in the side of the mountain overlooking the quarry opened fire. The guards armed with swords and shields had no response to gunfire. In a normal situation, the plan would be to wait until the police/colonial military arrived to enforce the will of the religious authority, those two groups had more to deal with. With Tau'ri military forces striking all over the planet they had no forces to respond to this attack. Even if they did the Tau'ri wasn't going to give them a chance.

"Three…" said one of the snipers as he worked the bolt action on his long gun. Here the Tau'ri technology wasn't that much different than their colonial counterparts and if this was sniper duel the Colonials may have stood a chance.

"Five." Said another sniper as the two of them traded score count. "I am winning our little bet."

"I got the one attempting to throw his spear at us." countered the 1st sniper "That is going to be a kill for the books."

"True…" admitted the second sniper he was about to pull the trigger on that spear throwing colonial in bright bronze armor but he had watched the man fall to the ground in a massive hole in his chest where the bullet had gone through the armor.

Most of the guards had some sense and took cover behind the buildings and some of the others had a much better idea they ran for their lives dropping their weapons. The Tau'ri let them go as they ran past the hidden second group of Tau'ri which was located opposite of the attacking force. The prisoners for the most part lied on the ground and waited, they couldn't go anywhere fast with legs bindings on them. So they took cover instead.

"Move forward." Ordered the commander as the second group of Tau'ri moved forward and down the quarry road toward the main area. With the snipers and marksmen drawing the attention of the guards they never noticed the main Tau'ri force heading down the road toward them. To add more to their cover Todd entered the battle projecting mental shadows in among the Colonials guards so that they focused on them. Spears and swords where shoved into the shadows only to have them disappear into nothingness and reappear behind them. This forced them out of cover and into the line of site of the actual threat the snipers and marksmen.

This allowed the main force to cover the open ground between their jump off point and the camp where they could have been attacked if the Colonials defenders could organize. Now that they were in the camp they could sweep the camp and liberate the religious prisoners. The attackers split up and began to sweep the camp, they didn't remove the chains of the people but instead told them to remain calm and stay down.

A pair of Tau'ri entered a building only to find that while on the outside it may look like a prisoner barracks it was in truth the guard housing. The two Tau'ri entered to find two of the guards dressed in full armor taking cover behind some of the large bunk beds which lined the walls. Seeing the two new comers caused both of them to stand up and leaved their weapons a spear and a short sword toward the two Tau'ri.

"Fight us with honor!" yelled one of the Guards as both Tau'ri raised their SIR-15 assault rifles and with a pull of the trigger they both fired three rounds burst into the bronze armored guards. The guards fell to the ground with blood pouring out of their bodies. Their armor may have been useful against swords and spears but bullets was something they were not deigned to deal with.

"Never bring a sword to a gun fight." Stated the Tau'ri to the now dead guards.

**Near the far edge of the camp located at the base of the hill below where the snipers/marksmen where at was the entrees to a small man made cave.** The small bit of intelligence believed this was the command center of camp, the team to reach the solid steel door was the entrees. The team formed up on either side of the door, one of the team placed charges on the door and with a twist of the detonator the door blew open. Seconds later a second man tossed in a flashbang, with that they entered and instantly stopped in their tracks. This was not a command center, it was torcher center.

There was a room at the end of a short hallway, there was a second door but it was unlocked but thick with sound proofing material. It opened up into a room which was about the length of a football field and double the height of a Tau'ri commandos. None of the South Korean or Gurkha's raiders had ever seen any church or places of worship where the worshipers where hung from thin leather straps around the arms from the ceiling. Multiple armed guards and priest in robes stood by watching the people hang in the nude from the ceiling, they made no move to help them and instead where reading from the holy scrolls of the Lords of Kobol.

"My God." said one of the South Koreans as the man beside him crossed himself, he wished he had something similar. None of the Colonials seemed to notice the new arrivals, the sound proofing had suppressed the sound of the battle outside and the flash bang going off.

"What the frak? None of these people's religious healing session is done yet." asked one of the nearest guards as he noticed the new comers, maybe he didn't realize that they were Tau'ri in the semi darkness. He learned quickly when the Gurkha pulled his kurki knife and with skills learned from years in the military he tossed the knife up and grabbed it by the tip before flinging it with force at the man. The razor sharp metal hit the man in the chest and cut through the soft fabric of the robes he was wearing. The sound of the priest falling to the ground screaming caused everyone to turn toward the Tau'ri who now all had weapons out and raised. The guards came at them and where shot down with ease, the Priests and Priestess stood their ground and some even turned back to preaching to their captive audience. By now more Tau'ri had entered the room and had forced the priests and priestess roughly against the back wall.

The same Tau'ri Gurkha who had knifed the first priest moved back and forth behind the holy men and women with a bloody knife in his hands. Behind him where other Tau'ri who had weapons trained on the back of the prisoners. Anger was boiling inside of all of them as they watched these poor and tortured souls being taken away with help from multiple Tau'ri medical personal from Owls which had landed in the now protected center.

"May the one true God look after you this day." Said one of the men who looked to be straight out of a holocaust camp to the Tau'ri medic who lowered him onto a stretcher.

"Don't worry Sir, we will get you out of here and somewhere safe." said the medic

"The only safety comes from the Lords of Kobol accept them or burn in…" started one of the priests only to get smashed in the back of the head by the but of a Tau'ri rifle. This caused him to slum over and caused the other prisoners to scream.

"You monsters!" screamed the priests

"They are not monsters I am." said a new voice as the Tau'ri guards turned to see Todd and their commander standing there.

"This is stuff straight out of the holocaust." stated the Commander as he turned to Todd, he nodded his head. He was in truth somewhat against orders, he wasn't meant to harm the guards if it wasn't needed, but looking around at him men and women under his command he was amazed that the Gurkhas and others didn't form a firing squad on their own. He also knew that after seeing the video of this chamber which came from the camera systems on their power armor, that command would look the other way. "They are all yours, just wait until we get all the people out of here."

"No problem and please when you leave turn off all the lights, I want to have some fun." stated Todd with a smile on his face, for once none of the Tau'ri felt any sadness for the priests and priestess.

**The flash traffic about the pending surrender of the 12 colonies reached Captain Ramuis and the other members of the Akula attack force. **When he got word the old Russian submariner picked up the ship wide speaker and told his crew of the likelihood that the war was soon over. The crew instantly began to celebrate as Captain Ramuis stood on the Bridge with a smile on his face, but mixed in with the expected joy was some sadness.

"Sir?" inquired his second in command, a bright young woman from Lanagara "Is something wrong?"

"Yes and no." admitted the Russian "it is just, I will miss this place."

"Sir?" inquired the second in command

"Before we headed out, I arranged it with command. I put in my retirement papers as soon as the war is over I will be leaving the navy." explained the old sailor, with a sad smile. "I have worn three different uniforms in my life, when I was a much younger man I wore briefly the uniform of a sailor of the Soviet Red Navy and then I wore the uniform of the Russian Navy. Now at the end I were the uniform of not only my home nation but my world."

"Sir, you could become an Admiral." offered the young sailor.

"I have turned that down multiple times, I am not meant to sit behind a desk. No, I always wanted to captain my own submarine and not only have I done that but I have captained my own space ship." Stated Captain Ramuis "No, it is time for me to retire to go back home and enjoy my retirement do some fishing, I used to do that all the time with my own grandfather. My daughter wasn't a fan but maybe my new grandson will."

"Sir, if I may the navy will be the leaser because of your leaving." stated the officer as Ramuis shook his head.

"No, it will not. My generation has passed on a new and even brighter torch to your generation I will be amazed to see how far you will take the people of the Tau'ri." Stated Ramuis as he looked around. "I am already amazed about all the changes and the implication of the new technology from the Asgard, Ancients and the Gate have only begun. This ship is far more advanced than anything I ever dreamed however it does lack one key thing which I miss."

"What is that Sir?" inquired the officer

"The smell of salt and the sea, a sailor should know that smell and love it." Said Ramuis "But we can't really have that in space."

"Sir, shall inform the crew about the news about the pending victory?" inquired the second officer

"Yes, considering they will be your crew soon." Stated Ramuis as she blinked. "You're getting promoted, congratulations."

**In a nearby system Acacia was being led back behind the Tau'ri lines, her hands where restrained with plastic restraints and her vision was still somewhat blurry because of the bomb blast.** The Tau'ri solider who caught her walked beside her, with one of his hands on the hand restraints and the other hand resting on his pistol. He didn't have to worry about her doing anything she could see the might of the Tau'ri moving forward, soldiers in full body armor with rifles on their backs where moving forward along with Tanks, APC and others vehicles. There was a strange effect with the soldiers. with their full visor helmet and generally the same uniform and pattern it made them seam almost robotic, but under that visor she could see the outlines of their faces. She turned her head and looked at the Tau'ri solider who had captured her, she had thought he was cute in the moments after the bomb blast and that hadn't changed. However she did notice that he was slightly older then she originally thought, she had thought he was of age with her but he was in fact slightly older maybe 4 years or so at the most making him 22 or so. She looked down at his chest and say his name painted onto the armor.

"Lefeld?" inquired Acacia as the man nodded his head but didn't add anything to the conversion. "What will happen to my friend?"

"Taken to the medical area and then it depends." stated Lefeld as they kept walking. "Where is she from?"

"Libran, like I am." stated Acacia as the solider suddenly stopped, she almost fell over because of the sudden stop but the hand held her up.

"Then why the fuck where you fighting?" inquired Lefeld "Libran surrendered a couple of hours ago."

"What?" asked Acacia as she blinked at the news.

"The King of Libran surrendered, we are releasing all the POWs from there, after they sign a waver saying if they take up arms against us we will kill them instead of taking them prisoners but they are releasing them." explained Lefeld he moved his head slightly looking at her cockeye. "You didn't know did you?"

"No." confirmed Acacia "So all we had to do was surrender and Medea wouldn't have loss her legs."

"She may get them back…well cloned versions of them anyhow." stated Lefeld "Not sure of the rules for that, either way you ladies will be lucky Libran surrendered so they will not get touched by the strike forces there or the Ragnarok."

"What forces?" inquired Acacia

"You are really in the dark, the Colonial navy is gone. Ships are bombarding every world in this system and Sagittarian and Scorpio. We also have control over another system…the one with Virgon I think in it but that is with Stealth ships." stated Lefeld as he stopped for a moment, then he decided that since everything he had said was being shown on the news meant it was find to say to a colonial. "Then there is the Ragnarok and what it can do, we whipped Caprica City off the map."

"You nuked Caprica City?" inquired Acacia her eyes going wide, instead it was Lefeld who's eyes narrowed as he looked at her.

"I was on Valhalla when your side dropped a nuke killing hundreds of thousands of people, I was among the first to enter Disney World Valhalla and I pulled children from the remains of that theme park." Stated Lefeld "We will not use nukes on a civilian population unless you forced us, no we used the Ragnarok which to my knowledge whipped out all traces of humanity from the city without killing a single person and that was the lowest setting according to the news it can do that to a whole planet."

"By the Lords of Kobol." exclaimed Acacia as she looked down and saw a small pool of blood had formed by her foot. Lefeld noticed too and got down on my knee and pulled out his knife, he cut away part of her pants where the blood had formed a bright red mark just above her knees.

"Looks to me a good laceration, surprise you can move." stated Lefeld as he reached behind him and pulled a silver packet from his pack. He had actually let her go, but Acacia made no attempt to run, instead she stood there as he put the silver pounder on her leg. "There the nanites will hold you together for a while."

"Thanks." stated Acacia as suddenly the sound of cheering filled the air, both of them turned to see multiple people raising their guns into the air and jumping up and down like children.

"What is going on, is it Christmas or something?" joked Lefeld as he looked at the celebrating people.

"The War is over!" yelled someone in the distance as Lefeld looked down at the computer pad which rested along the side of his arm. Acacia leaned over and looked over his shoulder at the tinny screen. It was a news broadcast from something called CNN and the host was in downtown Hypatia where multiple people in Tau'ri uniforms where celebrating. Along the bottom was the text rolling across the bottom. "Confirmed Reports Colonial President Adar will address the Colonies of Kobol, expected to surrender"

"It's OVER!" yelled Lefeld at the top of his lungs as he ripped his helmet off his head and raised his gun over his head.

"Tau'ri! Tau'ri!" cheered multiple people and so Private Acacia found herself standing in the middle of celebrating Tau'ri the likely surrender of her nation.

**On board the Missouri, General Leong was sitting behind her desk looking over some reports on her computer tablet, none of it was really pressing but with the war all but over it was time to go over the cost in terms of lives and material. **They had less KIA on their side then expected, almost half the number but it was still a price paid in blood. Judging from the estimates they had killed over 8,000 colonials for every one they had lost. The colonials would never be the same and neither would the Tau'ri, there was no going back to the way things where before, while it hadn't cost a lot in blood men and women from each nation had fought side by side and a bond had formed. General Leong looked toward the patch of the PRC on her arm just below the Tau'ri flag match.

"I wonder how long until we stop thinking of ourselves as Chinese, Japanese, American and all the others and we all just consider ourselves Tau'ri." Inquired General Leong to herself. Her computer beeped as she turned toward the flat screen display, she could have had an holographic display put in but that more for show than anything else. Having a solid screen meant someone sitting across from her couldn't read her screen like they could with a holographic screen. She tapped in a few keys only to stiffen in her chair as she saluted.

"Comrade Primer." Stated General Leong to the head of the People's Republic of China which was the head of the Chinese's Communist party.

"General Leong, I must praise you on everything you have done." stated the Chinese's leader to the Chinese General who was overall command of the operation.

"It wasn't just me, this was an historical campaign with every member nation of the Tau'ri taking part." added General Leong "However that isn't why you are contacting me is it?"

"No." stated the older man, he was well into his late 70s.

"We need to discuss about the future and how we are going to use this to help ourselves and China." stated the older man as General Leong looked at the Chinese flag below the Tau'ri flag on her arm. "You have gained a lot of political power leading this offensive, similar to how the American General Eisenhower used his political power gained from World War Two to become President."

"And how does that matter, the office of the President of the Tau'ri rotates between the big 8 powers, it will be years before the PRC hold the office of the President and then only for four years." stated General Leong, that was part of the charter that created the Tau'ri alliance.

"That will not last long." admitted the older man "There is already open talks about reforming the process so that it is a simply popular vote to see who takes the office of the President. While we may have the largest population we are no longer a true one party system and it is likely that we will not get a man or women into the office of the President for some time."

General Leong leaned back in her chair with a clear look of concern on her face.

"You disagree?" inquired the older man

"No, I agree but I don't believe that to be a problem." stated General Leong "I have seen what is coming and in time we will not think of ourselves as Chinese, Japanese, British or American anymore not as the 1st thing anyhow. We will think of ourselves as Tau'ri first and that process has only speed up because of this war. Soldiers from different nations have fought and bleed together, they will settle new worlds together and they will merge, your move is a power grab and I believe it will only drive a wedge in the Tau'ri alliance."

"And what do you recommend?" inquired the elder man with clear disappointment in his voice as well as a hint of anger.

"I am a better use to the Tau'ri alliance and our people all of the people of the Tau'ri in uniform but there is a way to solve both problems." Stated General Leong "You say I should consider the actions of Eisenhower in changing military power into political power, however maybe you should consider someone who isn't devisees as I would be. I am not called the Tigress for no reason after all, I am harsh, I am brutal, I am a warrior not a political leader, I would not make a good ruler for the people of the Tau'ri most of all in time of Peace."

"And who would you pick? General O'Neill? he is already saying he is going to retire and I can't blame him for doing so." Admitted the elder leader "Who would you pick?"

"I wasn't considering him, however there are not just one but two other options." Stated General Leong "One of those options is far beneficial to us, how about General Carter?"

"General Carter…but she hasn't done much in this war, aside from research and running the SGC on the moon." countered the head of the PRC.

"She is however a former member of SG1, a war hero equal to anything in human history, she has proven herself skilled in diplomatic matters and is known across the galaxy. She is an American which helps and…." started the elder

"And if she was voted to become President of the Tau'ri, she couldn't become the Head of the Tau'ri military after General O'Neill retires." Stated the elder with a smile. "Next would be General Shepard but he is happy in Atlantis and after him comes Commander Valhalla, that is you."

General Leong nodded her head, she had led the elder man to the right choice and it was a choice that would help all the people of the Tau'ri. After General Carter the next best choice would be Dr. Jackson or maybe Dr. McKay or Dr. Woolsey but either way, the older leaders of her nation would be happy with her being head of the Tau'ri military until the next generation of leaders came. By the time they did they wouldn't be as huge of evinces on nationality outside of special events like the World Cup and Olympic games.

The Olympics was coming up soon, General Leong thought to herself they were going to hold them on Valhalla and teams/sports from Lanagara were going to attend and there were talks of adding some free Jaffa and Lucian alliance groups/sports into future events. Maybe even in the distance future whatever passed for the 12 colonies after all this could take part in it as well.

"Yes, that could work." stated the elder "and you are still young, you could take her position after her time in office."

"Maybe, but either way it doesn't matter right now." stated General Leong "Now excuses me, I have some work to do here."

"Of course, so do I." stated the elder as he disappeared from the screen.

"Fool, Middle Kingdom focus fool." cursed General Leong to herself, her people had always believed themselves to be the center of the world. In the ancient past that was because they were the most advanced culture on Earth. That was a falsehood which had cost her nation in the past when more advanced European Nations beat them during the Opium Wars and later when a modernized Japan almost beat them in WW2. She knew that the future of China like all other nations of Earth rested in a united Tau'ri alliance spreading over Earth and other planets. Earth would become the center of what could possible become the greatest nation in this galaxy since the Ancients left it. The next couple of years would be key as more and more minor and larger worlds joined the Tau'ri like Lanagara did.

**The world was wet and warm, which was not what he expected. **He had expected to wake up either in a perfect field with the Lords of Kobol waiting to welcome him to paradise or more likely in his case to find himself on a boat heading into underworld he sat up and found that he was in a strange pod with some glowing liquid in it.

"What the frak?" inquired Saul as he looked around to see another four pods set up in a semi-circle of some darkened room, one had another equally confused man in it. He knew him, Galen Tyrol the head deck officer on the Galactica. Both men were in the nude but with the liquid nothing could be seen.

"Welcome back." greeted a voice as Saul looked to see an older man standing in the center of the room. He wore a business suit and had a smile on his face. "I was wondering when we would get the 1st of our final five back, you two where the mostly likely being on the battlefield but with the bombardment going on you can't be sure."

"Who the frak are…" started Saul only to grab his head, as memories began to flash through his mind but it was not memories of the life he had known on the colonies but they were still of him.

"Your memory block will go away in time, however for the moment you will remain here, cloths are on the table in front of you and there is a shower and bathroom on the next chamber. The council will decide what to do with you." stated the man as he turned to leave, only then did Saul notice the two robots standing on either side of the door. They were taller with thinner arms and legs but they were clearly centurions.

"Please make sure they stay here and contact me if the others arrive. The Tau'ri will not want them walking around their space station." said the man to one of the centurions. The centurion didn't respond but the message was understood with that he opened the door to show two Tau'ri guards standing against the wall opposite of the door, the man stepped through and closed the door behind him.

"What the frak is going on?" inquired Galen

"That is the question." stated Saul

**President Richard Adar stood in front of a podium, behind him was the seal of the 12 colonies of Kobol behind him. **He looked at that seal, for a moment he was transported into a future that never was, he imagined behind the 1st president of a united 13 colonies of Kobol, the seal would change forever. It would have been a glorious event, with celebrations on all 13 worlds as the children of the Lords of Kobol was united and having Kobol on top would have been the icing on the cake. Now not only had they not united together but they had instead gone to war with each other and the colonies had been far the worse because of it. Adar lowered his head and looked toward the camera operator, he also had a look of sadness on his voice.

"It is time." said President Adar as the operator nodded his head before raising his fingers and started to count down from 5, when he hit zero he pointed toward his President as the red light turned on the camera showing that it was broadcasting. Aside from his image his voice was being broadcasted out over all the wireless channels, both military and civilians everyone was getting this message. His broadcast was even picked up by the Tau'ri news agencies who broadcasted it live.

Adar took a deep breath and lowered his eyes again, he had the look of a tired man. His face was semi-unshaven giving him a shadow and the bags under his eyes where clear for all to see.

"People of the 12 colonies of Kobol, I speak to you on possibly the saddest day in our history surpassing the day we left Kobol and journeyed to our current home." Said President Adar "A few months ago, I stood in the Quorum building and informed the public that we had encountered our cousins costing thousands of lives in an accident as both sides traded shots. Both sides realized that it was a mistake and we came to accept that it was and started to come together. We had small moments of conflict but little did we know that was only the beginning."

Adar paused for a bit, his hands gripping the sides of the podium so hard that they were turning white.

"It was warned that is we ever returned to Kobol that we would have to pay a price in blood and we have paid a heavy price. We have no real number on how many brave men and women died over the course of the past day but it is well over 500 million maybe even a billion personal in the Colonial military. Our navy has been swept from the field, our worlds are under fire from the sky and Tau'ri flags fly from on top of some of our landmarks. Tau'ri soldiers march down the streets of cities that the Cylons never took and they have unleashed a weapon so powerful that they can whip our entire culture from our worlds killing billions of people as our technology base and life style disappears. We so many body blows and with no way to turn the tide I am hereby ordering the Colonial Military to do the unthinkable, I am ordering them to stand down. I call upon the Tau'ri to enter talks so that we can reach peace accords. I know that they have interrupted broadcasts in the past and I request that they do so now so we can agree to a cease fire before we can talk terms."

There was an interruption but it wasn't the Tau'ri, instead a new broadcast was coming in from Sagittarian and it showed Priest Spiro and his younger brother Vice President Spiro standing along with multiple other religious leaders, Quorum members from Sagittarian and Gemenon and even a handful of military officers.

"People of the 12 colonies, children of the Lords of Kobol, we cannot give into the demands of our wayward and Godsless cousins. We must keep up the fight! The Lords of Kobol will it!" exclaimed Priest Spiro who was the head of the largest religious sect in the colonies. Standing behind him was the Priest and Priestess who lead two more of the top five groups.

"And that is why I am calling on true believers to keep fighting and together we will carry out the will of the Lords of Kobol." stated Vice President Spiro "I call on all true believers to keep up the fight."

"Very well." added another voice, a cool and measured voice as General Leong appeared on the television screen of everyone in the colonies watching. "I will address President Adar first, you know our conditions for ending our attack, the total and unconditional surrender of the 12 colonies of Kobol. Only then we can begin talking out what will become of your worlds. Now to the religious elements of Sagittarian and Gemenon, if you don't fall in line with then I will deploy the Ragnarok, the weapon that whipped Caprica City off the map to your worlds."

"We will shoot it down, maybe it will take a city or two but we will find a way to bring it down. As the Lords of Kobol as my witness it will not fire more than once over our worlds before we bring it down." stated Vice President Spiro as General Leong smirked, a smirked that caused a chill to run down the spin of everyone who saw it.

"You don't understand, the firing on Caprica City was the lowest setting of the Ragnarok with two shots, one on Gemenon the other on Sagittarian we will do what we did to Caprica City on a global scale." stated General Leong "I will order our advance to be halted for 1 hour, after that hour if you do accept an unconditional surrender we will start this up again. 1 hour and then we will end this once and for all."

**Well I hope you liked this chapter, as many of you guessed the more religious elements inside the colonies are making maters worse. Now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75.**


	78. Chapter 78

**Chapter 78 Terms and Conditions**

"How…how the frak did he get off world?" inquired President Adar in an ice cold tone which sent a chill down the spin of the aids in the room. They had expected him to explode in anger this coldness was even more unsettling because they hadn't expected it.

"Sir, he is the vice President and the brother of the most important religious leaders in the colonies." Stated the braver of the aid. "Is it not unsurprising that he can get his hands on a Raptor."

"I guess not." admitted Adar as he lowered his head. Part of him wanted to run, to get in a raptor and jump to some world, ditch the bird and blend into the populous. He knew that one of the demands that the Tau'ri had was that he would have to hand himself over for a trial. A trial that he was sure to lose, even if he had ordered the task force which had carried out the nuclear strike which started the war to only appear above the Tau'ri world as a show of force it had ended up with a nuclear strike. He wasn't sure how it worked under Tau'ri law but under Colonial law he would be guilty. In his mind he wondered how they would kill him a rope, injection or maybe just a simple firing squad, the Tau'ri where not going to let him live. The colonials had killed hundreds of thousands of people in that nuclear strike and while beating the Colonial military was a start, he and the others where the finishing course. "So how do we fix this? We need to get the Sagittarons and the Gememons to stand down."

"Sir, we are still waiting for conformation that the other units are standing down." admitted the aid as Adar took a deep breath.

"And military units from Sagittaron and Gememon are spread out across the colonies." added Adar "Will those units stand down, are they more loyal to their oath to the 12 colonies of Kobol or to the Lords of Kobol?"

"Sir, we do not know." admitted the aid

"Then we need to find a way to convince the Tau'ri that we are not to be held reasonable for the actions of units from Sagitattaron or Gememon." Ordered President Adar

**Gunfire still rung through the air but that was dying down slowly as word went out to all the colonial troops to stand down. **The Tau'ri with radios built into to everyone of their suits and computer pads capable of not only linking with the battle network but civilian ones as well all had gotten stand fast orders. Normally each colonial squad would have a radio or wireless men as they called it, however the Tau'ri had beat them so badly that most squads where made up of whatever was left of squads after the Tau'ri had mauled them in battle or they were civilians pressed into battle. This meant that few had their normal set up and privates where acting as squad leaders for groups of rifles or pistol armed civilians. This meant the word of the ordered surrender didn't reach everyone right away and in some cases the orders where semi incomplete.

That incompleteness lead to mass surrender of some Colonials, they didn't hear all of the order that said that they should wait until terms could be reached. Instead the Colonials threw down their weapons, came out of whatever cover they had and marched hand in the air to surrender. They were surrendering to anything they could find.

A prime example happened just south of the Tau'ri advance out of the subreads of Hypatia, a Tau'ri Puma recon vehicle had broken down with only three men in it. They radioed back and ordered to stay where they were and wait for the main body to reach them which was fifteen to twenty minutes away. Suddenly and to the amazement of the three Tau'ri multiple squads of Colonials came out from a nearby farming town, these where not the rag tag civilian units not fully. These where fully armed and uniformed colonial soldiers and there was a lot of them. Well over a hundred of them and they moved toward the three Tau'ri in their disabled vehicle with their hands in the air.

"What the?" inquired the driver of the vehicle as he held his weapon ready as his partner took cover behind the vehicle and the other manned the mounted machine gun. Even with that machine gun these colonials could have killed them, they outnumbered them that badly. Instead they tried to surrender. The Colonials dropped their weapons and raised their hands above their heads.

"Put your weapons here and march that way." Ordered the squad leader pointing toward where the bulk of the oncoming colonials, three men could guard over a hundred prisoners. Instead the prisoners dropped their weapons and moved on down the road with their hands in the air. The three Tau'ri soldiers just stood their stunned as the mound of weapons kept growing until it was waste high and included everything from ceremonial short swords to what looked to be their version of an Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG).

**Inside Lezbha Private Spiro stood before a vending machine in the high school which had been used as a gathering point for refugees before they could be pulled out of the city. **Unfortunately for the civilians the Tau'ri had overrun the position and had captured the civilians and the handful of police which had protected them. The Tau'ri did nothing to them, Private Spiro would be outside by his tank waiting for a repair team to fix the tread however he spoke ancient Tauron and the guards were having trouble. Having dealt with that trouble Spiro had gone off by himself and found the schools vending machines.

"How the hell am I supposed to get to that." cursed Spiro as he looked at the drink he wanted.

"Spiro." Said a voice as the 18 year old turned to see his command, Colonel Jagar walking toward him.

"Sir." Said Spiro as he snapped to attention, unlike anyone else in the Tau'ri military he didn't have a second flag patch located under the Tau'ri patch. He wore only the flag of the Tau'ri on his arm.

"Trying to get a drink?" inquired Jager with a slight laugh.

"Yes, sir this was my favorite soft drink when I was a kid and none of the ones you have seam to match it." explain Spiro "However I don't have any money on me."

"Well Private I have seen some soldiers raiding a nearby jewelry shop to "liberate" the items so I don't think anyone will say anything if you break into the vending machine." explained Jager with a slight inward smile. His family had the WW2 era motorcycle that his great grandfather had used at the end of the war and spirited away before surrendering. "It is just a part of war, people steal whatever they want or need. My nation knows that better than some others."

"Alright." Said Spiro as he pulled his fist back and with the help of the power armor punched the glass until it was at the point of shattering and then kicked it in. With that done he reached in and pulled the drink he wanted and another one for his commander. "Here try this, sir."

"Alright." said Jager as he opened the can and took a drink and instantly hated it, it was a mix of some unknown fruit and what tasted like peppered ginger. He began to cough as Spiro laughed at his officer's expense.

"So you don't like it? Not that surprising it has a fruit that is kind of an acquired taste." Explained Spiro "Is the tank fixed sir?"

'No, crews are still on the way however your grandfather Vice President Spiro and your great Uncle Priest Spiro is attempting to rally Sagittaron and Gememon to keep up the fight, high command hopes that you may have some insight on how to talk them down." Explained Jager only to have Spiro shake his head.

"No sorry sir, Religion has full power on the Sagittaron may be slightly less on Gemenon but only slightly." Stated Spiro as Jager nodded his head.

"Do you think if Sagittaron falls, Gememon will surrender?" inquired Jager

"It is more likely than Sagittaron surrendering if Gememon falls." Stated Spiro

"Very well I will inform high command, maybe they will target Sagittaron first and see if Gemenon surrenders after that happens." Stated Jager

"And what happens to Sagittaron and Gememon if they refuse to surrender?" inquired Spiro

"The Ragnarok on a planet size scale." explained Jager to the native born Sagittaron. "General Leong was not kidding about that. It would mean the death of countless millions of people, I wouldn't even be surprised if after they fire and a peace comes around they place both planets under blockage to make sure that no one helps them. Right now they have us in a little bind."

"Sir?" inquired Spiro

"We can crush them at any moment, but to do so will cause 90% of their population to die when we remove all their technology." Stated Jager, he didn't have to add that Sagittaron contained the largest population of any of the 12 colonies. "On top of that, their religious police took children away from parents who broke with their religious laws before putting them into labor camps."

"That would have happened to me and my brothers." Stated Private Spiro "I would have been handed over to my Grandfather to raise and brainwash by."

"We have almost a hundred thousand people who were not that luckily, and some of them did have their children with them but not all of them." Stated Jager "We don't want to doom those kidnapped kids to death which is what would happen if we fire the Ragnarok."

"So they will not fire it?" inquired Spiro as his commander shook his head.

"No, they will still fire if they need too but they will attempt to find a way to get them to surrender." Stated Jager with no real hope in his voice.

**To the people of the Tau'ri the war was all but over and the people were celebrating, across five worlds people were celebrating.** People where waving flags outside of main government buildings ranging from the White House to their own local court house. Where it was dark enough people where shooting fireworks off into the sky filling the night with warm glow. If it wasn't dark enough some people where dancing in the streets and everywhere people where drinking to their mostly bloodless on their side victory. Church bells where being rung and business where closing early so workers could go out and celebrate. There was of course some concern about that the war would start up again but for most that idea never even reached their mind.

They saw a golden future within their grasp, the Tau'ri still didn't have the largest fleet in the galaxy but they had the most powerful fleet. They had the most advanced technology and was working toward integrating all the technology from the Asgard, Ancients and the Gate into a new normal. A sense of manifest destiny was washing over them all, they had 20% of the galaxy under their control and that included countless numbers of worlds that could in time be populated. They would of course run into new civilians and maybe some of them like Langara would join with them growing the Tau'ri as they went.

One of the places in which was far away in a sense from the celebrating was the memorial shrine and monument to the nuclear attack on Celin. This was a strangely peaceful place with the strange Nox tree which reacted to noise planted in the center of the memorial park. On either side of the tree sat the twisted and melted remains of train engines. This entire area had been part of a massive train yard which had been flattened by the nuclear blast.

A large marble wall surrounded the entire area with large pads for statues to be put into place, trees and perfectly treated shrubs, flowers and grasses. Stone pathways allowed a visitor to journey around the park and to multiple statues which surrounded the park. From above it kind of looked like a wagon wheel with a central hub where the silver tree was located along with a multi religious shrine. Shooting out of that where eight paths which led toward their own area for statues and the whole thing was surrounded by a stone wall with a walking path running beside it. The park was still not finished plans was to add the names of the those who lost their lives in combat to the names of the dead from the nuclear strike into the wall. Of the eight areas for statues only four of them had currently been filled, the first one which was located at the main entrees was the recreation of the flag raising at Disney World Valhalla where American and Chinese Paratroopers rose the Tau'ri flag back up. Another statue showed a giant man in a Tau'ri uniform holding a bloody and wounded girl in his arms. Another statue showed two soldiers one with the star of David flag of Israel on clearly on his arm and another with the Palestine flag on his arm helping a clear a mound of rubble so that a young man could get out. The last of the current statues was located at the far edge of the park looking out over the water of the massive lake. It showed a bunch of bronze children playing a game of soccer, this was one of the more powerful images since it was recovered from a digital camera located in the remains of a park. The time stamp showed it was taken 10 seconds before the flash.

People from all across Valhalla had journeyed here when word of the victory game down but instead of celebrating the placed candles down for the dead and walked amongst the trees with only the ceremonial honor guard there. Here was of strangely quiet, even the distance flashes of the nightly firework celebrating at the rebuilt Disney World Valhalla visible across the narrow lake seamed muter. This was a place of remembrance and the people who gathered here, survivors of the attack and those who lost parents, children or other loved ones in the blast came to remember them.

**While most of the worlds where either celebrating the victory or remembering the dead, General Samantha Carter Head of Stargate Command and next likely person to take the reigns as Supreme Military Commander of the Tau'ri stood before a large window which looked out over the forbidden City in Beijing China. **Scanned the ancient and impressive looking buildings before her eyes gazed upward toward a long thin metal pillar which shot up in the distance. She knew what that pillar was for and while it was an eye sore on the skyline it and its multiple matching pillars spread out around the city and other massive cities was the reason why she was breathing clean air. Those pillars held massive air scrubbers which cleaned the once heavily polluted air of 99.8% of all none natural pollutions. Similar set ups had cleaned rivers, lakes and oceans slowly reversing the damage man had done to the world it was a slow process but it was working extremely well.

"General Carter, will you please fallow me." said an aid with a slight bow as Carter left the window and journey down the long marble halls of the building. Here the soldiers still wore the PRC uniform instead of the Tau'ri uniform stood as guards. Even so they snapped to attention as she pasted them by, they may be in their national uniforms but they were still Tau'ri soliders. Just like how the US marines who stood protecting the White House and President. Speaking of the US president she walked in to find him talking with the Chinese leader and all the other big eight powers.

"Sirs, Ma'ams." said Carter as she snapped to attention in front of the most powerful members of the big 8 powers which controlled the upper council of the Tau'ri.

"Thank you for coming General, I know it is strange coming to Beijing but with the amount of press currently around the President in Brazil it was better if we met here in secret." Explained the Brazil President who was the current holder of the President of the Tau'ri. "Here we can talk in secret."

"The Press may be free here now but they know when they need to keep their mouth shut." Said the Russian President as the Chinese leader nodded his head in agreement.

"What can I do for you?" inquired Carter

"General, we have a situation. We have a problem, our current system with the office of President rotated between the 8 of us every 4 years with the rest forming a cabinet with a lower congress made up of the rest of the nations of the Tau'ri will not work much longer. It can't work much longer." stated the US President "The system is going to break down, so like how the founding fathers threw out the Articles of Confederation and replaced it with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights we plan to do the same."

"I figured that would happen in time sir, do you want my advice on something." Inquired Carter

"In a way." Said the German Chancellor. "See we have the general set up already agreed upon, a simple popular vote with determine the top 3 candidates which will move on to a runoff until someone gets 51%."

"We will of course add rules about breaking a tie and the like." added the French President "The thing is, we want you to run be the 1st President of the Tau'ri."

Carter blinked as she looked at the 8 of them, these where the most powerful men and women in the galaxy and they wanted to hand power over to her.

"You seam surprised, I admit I was surprised when my Chinese counterpart offered your name as a candidate we can all get behind. Your victory would all but be certain." stated the US President "And it makes a lot of sense, you are a hero from your work with SG1 and the Stargate Program. You have the respect of multiple cultures both here and across the galaxy, Langara considers you a hero as well. You may have never held public office but you are a general and have military experience and you understand the new technology."

"Sir…I don't think my heart would belong in politics. I am a scientist, I should be in the lab working on integrating the new technologies." advised Carter

"In a perfect world, yes." admitted the British PM "However look at it this way, you are someone all sides can agree upon with no real issue of note. Right now we are all Tau'ri we have been forged together in the bond of struggle but if all sides began to push for their own candidate too soon then that newly forged bond could break and we would break into our old small groups."

"Think about it this way, if George Washington hadn't become the 1st President of the United States then the political infighting of each faction at the time could have broken up our new nation." Explained the US President "We need you to do this General Carter, however I can't…no I will not order you to do this."

Carter thought about it for a moment then decided she needed more time.

"Sir, I will need some time to think about it." added Carter

"Of course, and I should add we will allow you to pick a VP I would imagine it would be Dr. Jackson." Said the American President with a smile, he wanted that. To have the President and the VP of the Tau'ri be American would be nice. Instead Carter shook her head.

"No, sir if I picked anyone it would be Jonas Quinn, as you said we need to bind everyone together not just on Earth and he is a hero too." stated Carter, she knew that Jack wouldn't be talked into becoming VP or President for that matter he was a lot older then she was. He was going to enjoy his retirement and do some fishing while she may be flung into the dangerous water of politics.

**While most of the Tau'ri where celebrating the situation was very different in the Colonies. **Some of the worlds which had been under the most direct fire like Tauron and Caprica took time to take stock. People rushed toward the attack sites trying to save the people who had made it through the attack. People were digging out of what remained of the military posts that had once been their job site. Others civilians on less attack worlds like Scorpio who had only taken some mild fire outside of the total destruction of their shipyards gathered around their Televisions and watched the news. A mix of horror at the level and speed of destruction mixed in with relief that it seemed to be over. On the worlds that hadn't been touched they watched the images coming across their screens with disbelief.

"If the Tau'ri could do that…." Said a Vigon citizen in a local bar.

"We never stood a fraken chance." Stated the man beside him as he downed his drink in on go. "I am going to get good a fraken drunk, so that I don't have to think about how we are at their mercy."

"I'll join you." Confirmed the 1st as they began to drink away their defeat.

**Elsewhere across the colonies the more religious people took to the streets trying to force the war to keep going. **There was few among them, the sight of Tau'ri aircraft flying over their heads and the general self-pity which was taking hold was enough to make their numbers small. Then reports began coming in of suicides taking place among some the most religious people, fearing that the Tau'ri would outlaw the faith they believed in so deeply caused some people to just throw in the towel.

"Beautiful." Said the number one model cylon as he and the other models watched from the observation room on the ship the Tau'ri had set up for them and other visiting observers on over Tauron.

"The Tau'ri have crushed the Colonials." stated the six as Cavil nodded his head in agreement.

"You know I didn't think I would but I actually think I like this better than the destruction we were close to green lighting before the Tau'ri arrived." Stated Cavil, on some level he knew he shouldn't have said that outload on a Tau'ri ship. Even so he knew that the Tau'ri knew what the Cylon high command had considered doing to their creators and former enslavers. "Their technology and straginty made all the differences, add to that that they had the safety factor that came from distance helped them greatly."

"They could destroy us as well if they decide too." stated the six

"True." admitted Cavil "But I see no reason why they should, we have never done anything to them and we have been nothing but helpful. Frak they saved your little human toy Baltar and if he becomes president then he will be perfectly placed for us."

"They are also helping us clone new humanoid Cylons models from the samples we took from our true home and they are also fixing that little error that prevents us from having children." Stated a three as she joined the discussion.

"Some of my sisters are considering killing themselves just to regenerate into a body that would allow them to have children." Stated the six

"All true, and I don't need the fraken memo on everything they are doing what is your point." Inquired Cavil

"That while they haven't done anything yet against us, they are not that happy about what we do with our centurions and raiders." Added the Six as Cavil bit his lip in anger. "They call it slavery and on some levels it is. We are playing the role of the Colonials this time around."

"It may be for the best if we release them." advised the three

"Without them we have no military force." countered Cavil as the two female Cylons looked at each other, neither one of them had to say how much use their military would be against the Tau'ri. "Maybe an arrangement can be reached, we need some time to modify our ships to run without the centurions and raiders in key places. Maybe if we release them in a year or two they will be content with that."

"Maybe, but either way we have to consider releasing the centurions and the raiders." advised the Three "I wonder what would our ancestors would have done if the Colonials had freed us when they realized we had free will. Would we be at peace with them instead being mortal enemies with them?"

"Interesting questions, but that really doesn't matter now." Countered the one "We have many important decisions to make, we are about to enter a new phase. We will not be the main power in the galaxy but we can very friendly to the main power in the galaxy and that will get us a lot of what we want in the end."

**At that same moment, Lee Adama rolled to a stop on the edge of the great sea on Tauron. **In truth, it was tiny in comparison to other oceans but on Tauron it was the largest body of water. None of that really mattered right now, what mattered was that he could see the wrecked hulk of the battlestar Galactica resting halfway in and halfway out of the water. It was on its back and it had lost a lot of it's back engine compartment and one of its flight pods but the smoke that rose from it was grey not black meaning that she wasn't burning too much.

"Dad." said Lee as he looked at the wreck of the battlestar, some people where coming out of it. Climbing out of holes ripped opened in the armor by the fall but a lot of them were injured so badly.

He was about to ride toward the broken battlestar when he heard splashing movement coming from the water. He turned just in time to see a figure fall on his hands and knees in the surf, he was in a soaked flight suit, full helmet and all. Then with a lot of force he ripped off the helmet to show that he was in fact a she.

"Kara?" inquired Lee as Kara "Starbuck" Thrace sat on her knees in the surf.

"Gods Damn it Lee, what the frak are you doing here?" inquired Kara

"Being shot down like you." Explained Lee as he moved forward to help his friend up. "I just didn't hit the water like you did."

"Consider yourself fraken luckily that you didn't." cursed Kara as she looked at her helmet. "They say keep it on because of the air supply it has but it is a pain to swim in."

"I remember from training, are you ok?" inquired Lee

"Aside from my pride from being shot down, yes." said Kara with a cough as she moved some of her hair out of her eyes. The waves where smashing into her back as her muscles tried to decide if they wanted to move or not.

"I was shot down two times." reassured Lee with a laugh, but Kara wasn't laughing instead she was reaching for her pistol. Lee had just enough time to tilt his head in confusion when he felt the barrel of a gun be pressed against the back of his head.

"Don't even think about it, if I shot him the bullet will hit you." said the Tau'ri solider behind Lee to Kara. For a moment Lee wasn't sure that Kara would take the enemies advice, then he went on. "Besides it's over, your president and your forces are surrendering."

That caused Kara to stop and in that moment more Tau'ri moved up and took their weapons. They were now prisoners. Lee turned his head a bit and saw that multiple Tau'ri vehicles had rolled up on the remains of the battlestar.

**Admiral William Adama moved through what remained of his battlestar, he through hallways and that rooms which he been in countless numbers of times. **Now everything was flipped upside down and smoke filled the air. The smoke concerned him but it wasn't as thick as it should have been if the ship was really ablaze. He neared one of the airlocks to find a group of men and women trying to clear it out.

"Admiral." Said a marine as he spotted him, the marine like everyone else was dirty and bloodly and held a piece of metal in his hand.

"No time for formality, lets clear this way out." ordered Adama as he moved to help clear the hole. Being much older than the bulk of the crew he physically couldn't lift as much or go as fast. Even so just seeing their commander there, his body covered with blood and helping them out move stuff gave them hope. Then came the sounds of tapping from the outside.

"We are here!" yelled multiple people as they pounded on the walls. More digging followed as two teams, one on the inside and one on the outside worked to clear a path. Finally a ray of light came through the hole.

"Thank the Lords of Kobol, you found us." Yelled a happy woman as she shot her arm out through the hole. As she expected another hand wrapped around hers however she could feel the metal braces of Tau'ri power armor on that hand. Her eyes widened as the hole grew wide enough for people to see out of. What they saw as a group of Tau'ri soldiers clearing a path being covered by three other Tau'ri weapons raised and ready.

"Frak." cursed the marine as he reached for his pistol only to have Adama grab his hand.

"Stand down everyone, it's over." ordered Adama as he moved forward to the front of the group, he was directly in front of the Tau'ri who had weapons aimed at him. "I am Admiral William Adama, I surrender what is left of my Battlestar and her crew."

"Alright." Said the head Tau'ri in a strange accent, he had no idea that it was an Australian Accent. "I worried we would have to shoot you, kind of a shame considering your President has ordered your forces to stand down."

**Down in the streets a strange celebration was going on before the eyes of Doctor Baltar, he could see from the hotel room that he shared with Dr. Jenny Oldstone who was in truth a humanoid cylon the main landing zone for Tau'ri Owls on Libran. **As they landed and the POWs they carried got off they were embraced by family and friends if they were in the area. Either way the men and women coming off the Owls where in bad shape, their uniforms where dirty and bloody. They were in a state of shook and it was clear that they hadn't fully processed what had happened to them.

"The Tau'ri…the Tau'ri are truthy that much powerful than anything we have ever imagined." Stated Baltar as he looked out of the crowed.

"They are and they scare even the Cylons." admitted the humanoid Cylons "They are going to stay in line for a very long time. Besides we don't have any reason to cross them."

"They never enslaved the Cylons so why should they be angry with them." said Baltar both of them knew that she was a cylon and but they played this game. "However they aren't likely to get everything they want from a peace? I don't see the Tau'ri following through on their threats to whip out Sagittaron and Gememon, they are beaten just like we are. No point in kicking a man when he is down."

"Maybe but the religious nuts are as stubborn as they are stupid, do you think they will give in just because they are beaten?" inquired Jenny as she lied on the bed in the nude. "Either way, it will be good for us, you spoke the truth about the coming storm and the people know that, the Tau'ri know that. I wouldn't be surprised if the Tau'ri demand that you take an important role in the peace talks."

"I think they may." admitted Baltar as he turned away from the window to the nude woman on the bed, with the only thing on her being the new engagement ring. Both of them knew that the Tau'ri would have him at the table, because the Cylons would ask it of him. That would lead to more political power and maybe even some time as the Colonial President office, since the term limits for that post was three four year terms that could mean up to 12 years of President Baltar and first lady Dr. Jenny Oldstone who was really a humanoid Cylon.

**The Ragarok broke it's station over the Caprican city of Delphi and headed out into space, once again it was under heavy escort however instead of heading to nearby Gememon which was still in open rebellion it entered hyperspace and came out within minutes near Sagittaron. **Here unlike other places the Tau'ri ships in orbit had kept up their fire on the planet below. It wasn't that the world was any real threat to them, not anymore but this was the hot bed of rebellion and had to be put down. Once again the Ragnarok dove into the atmosphere of a colonial world. Since the target would likely be the entire world they took up position much higher above the ground to spread the effect. The Ragnarok was still visible as it moved into position over what remained of the holy Mt. Olympus.

Only a couple months ago by the colonial standards the Akula had fired a deep penetrator nuclear missile into the nearby Mt. Othrys where a Colonial Military bunker was located. That blast had caused that entire mountain to fall in upon itself and had partly destroyed Mt. Olympus and the Temple of Zeus located inside. The Ragnarok moved into firing position over the mountain, it was still clearly visible like a deadly star. Down below the Ragnarok the priest and priestess of the holy order of Zeus where on their knees praying to the statues of Zeus which had made it through the semi destruction of the temple. Their chants and songs filled the air as they prayed for the King of the Lords of Kobol to intervene and grant them victory.

Down in the over crowed streets of Sagittaron the situation was much different, street side holy men and women preached about the upcoming victory to the crowds of people who were rushing around in a panic. They had seen the beams of light coming down from the Tau'ri ships in orbit, they had seen the blasts and heard the booms as colonial military base. They had seen the black shapes of Tau'ri aircraft flying overhead and bombing them or shooting down anything that came up to challenge them.

The few anti-air guns which had been put up around the larger cities which where there where many of them had been knocked out a long time ago and as far as anyone had heard they hadn't shot down a single Tau'ri aircraft. Every so often there were bursts of gunfire as people on the ground tried to fire rifles and other guns up at the Tau'ri aircraft but that clearly wasn't working. The fighters were too high and even so unless they hit both engine in takes they wouldn't do much and even than the Eagles and others had a rocket booster to get into space. Fire that and get up into space for a pick up, any land based military forces larger than a motorcycle where being destroyed

Inside the temple of Zeus the holy men and women prayed to the Lord of the Lords of Kobol, hoping that faith would stop the coming storm.

It was then that the space above over Sagittaron ripped open as the Tau'ri battleship Missouri along with five escorting ships exited hyperspace and headed toward the planet. The planetary defenses had been destroyed by the Akula stealth ships but followed behind by another task force headed by the Battleship Shiva that wasn't the reason why the flag ship of the Tau'ri fleet and the name shake of the Missouri class battleship had arrived over this colonial world. Sagittaron. As the Battleship headed toward the planet it entered high orbit over Mt. Olympus.

The priest and priestess of the holy order of Zeus where praying before the main statue of Zeus in the grand hall. The hall like everything else was cut into the mountain and was a work of art that took five generations to complete. The statue of Zeus stood almost 50 ft. tall with the doom of the main chamber 20 ft above the top of the statue's head. The statue stood with a full robe with a large solid gold lightning bolt in its hand. Below the face of Zeus the Priest and Priests sung holy chants to Zeus with Priest Spiro and Vice President Spiro reading quotes from the holy scrolls. None of them heard her at first, none of them saw her at first only when she started to walk past the seats of priests, priestess and simple civilians did they notice her. She was dressed in a dark navy uniform, so dark it almost looked black, she had black shoulder bars with golden stars them. She also had black collar tags, the Colonials didn't know that the color of the collar tags told the specialization. In this case black meant armored warfare. Over one shoulder running down around her armpit was a silver tassel. Silver buttons with the upside down V symbol of the Tau'ri pressed in them where clearly visible. On one side of her chest the opposite side that the Colonial military used was a small name tag along with multiple metals and ribbons in different colors. Her footsteps where load and powerful against the marble stone floor. Outside of her dress she was a shorter than normal woman with dark hair pulled back into a bun under her cap. Her eyes where just as dark as her hair, but they showed a cold calculation behind them.

She stopped at the foot of the stairs leading up to the main ceremonial area where both Spiro brothers where.

"I am General Loeng." She said in a powerful voice which seemed to boom off the walls. "I am Commander of all Tau'ri forces."

There was a long pause as everyone looked around not sure what to do, none of them had expected this to happen. Inside General Leong was smiling, she had caught them off balanced that was one of the key things to win battle and the Tigress knew that.

"Let's see if we can get you to accept reality." stated the Tigress before her voice becoming ice cold. "Before I have to order the destruction of your civilization here."

**Well I hope you liked this chapter, the end of the story is very near. I must say I have found it amazing at how beloved this story has become, when I started I halfway expected that few people would ever read this story since both shows are not currently on TV anymore. I was wrong. Now I am going to enjoy the rest of my birthday May 5****th**** so until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75**


	79. Chapter 79

**Before we start, for some reason when I posted my last chapter on May 5****th**** 2017 for some reason Fanfiction didn't send out the New Chapter notice when I posted. If you haven't read chapter 78, I highly recommend you go read the chapter. Thanks Wilkins75. **

**Chapter 79 Reality**

The Holy Temple of Zeus on Sagittarian was deadly quiet, the throngs of people gathered there praying for a victory against the seemly unstoppable wave of Tau'ri aggression. They had been singing, praying and reading from their holy scrolls when something unthinkable happened. A short woman dressed in the dress uniform of the Tau'ri walked into the temple passing guards who were too stunned to do anything more then look at her and proceeded up to the very steps of the raised platform around the statue of Zeus.

"I am General Loeng, I am supreme Commander of all Tau'ri forces." She announced in a long pause, a grinning smile on her face. "Let's see if we can get you to accept reality before I have to order the destruction of your civilization here."

"Another holograms." snapped Vice President Spiro as he moved forward and went to slap the image, hoping that would cause it to break apart so it would stop spreading lies. His eyes widened as the image didn't go away but instead General Leong's hand snapped up and grabbed his wrist before he could strike her. They may have been of size advantage over her but General Leong was over 30 years his junior in age and had spent her life on the battlefield not behind a podium.

"I am not a hologram." stated General Leong as she forced the 75 year old man's hand back. The force caused him to stumble backwards a bit and onto the stairs leading up to the alter area. "I am here, in the flesh."

"Then we can kill you?" inquired a guard as he pulled his sword and moved toward Leong.

"No you can't." answered Leong "See I have studied your religious practices since they are such an important part of your culture, you can't harm anyone during a prayer ceremonial where you are asking to be saved. It is a crime against the Lords of Kobol to ask them for mercy and at the same time not show mercy for another one of their children in their hall."

"You are not their children." countered Priest Spiro only to see the smile grow on the General's face.

"So, you admit then that the Tau'ri are not members of the children of the Lords of Kobol and therefore we are not under your control either." stated General Leong as Priest Spiro winced a bit. "You can't have it both ways, it has to be one of them."

For a moment General Leong enjoyed the look on the faces of the two Spiro brothers. Little did they know that a team of Special forces had entered the temple ahead of her and had her covered from multiple different points and had also set up tinny cameras. Some of them had even entered the temple dressed as civilians and even priests, if the colonials tried anything this place would turn into a bloodbath and she would be beamed away at once. That would also doom the whole world into the dark ages.

"Either way it doesn't matter I came be beamed out at any sign of danger and I come to try to save you from yourself." stated General Leong

"Only Zeus can save us." said a scared voice in the crowed.

"Not true." countered General Leong with a shake of her head. "Maybe Zeus is the only way you can get what you want as in victory over us but as for saving you that is easy."

"By surrendering you mean." snapped an older priest "We will never surrender our right to Kobol, it is our birthplace."

"So, you say." said General Leong then her voice turned to glacial ice. "But that is something you can't have, so forget about it."

"We can't forget about it." stated the priest

"So, you would sacrifice your worlds to have Kobol back." Stated General Leong "Millions if not billions of lives for a planet and that is on top of the estimated 75 million people who have already died on your side of this war."

That caused multiple eyes to widen, even Vice President Spiro, if that number was true that would be almost double the amount of people who died in the Cylon war and the Tau'ri had only really been attack them for just over a day.

"You shouldn't be surprised, you had thousands of ships and hundreds of those where battlestars. Each battlestars contains about 2,500 crew members each. When your ships go down in space, the entire crew generally goes down with the ship." stated General Leong "Add to that our weapons firing down on your bases from orbit and our forces crushing your forces on Tauron where you built up the bulk of your ground forces."

"You couldn't have destroyed all those forces so fast." countered Vice President Spiro but it was clear that a lot of people in the crowd where now a lot more afraid then they had been moments ago. "The elements of War mean that is impossible."

"War, war is a test of mind against mind, body against body and strategy against strategy." Countered General Leong "Your methods of war dates back over a hundred years to the Tau'ri nations and we have fought long and bloody wars against each other so many times we have gotten very good at it. Our aircraft hunted down your forces and destroyed them from the sky, our artillery rained fire down on your positions as our tanks broke through your lines and run amok behind your lines. Our infantry took cities which held out for years against your until now greatest threat the Cylons and our ships blew your ships apart and left them adrift in space. You have gained nothing from this and lost everything."

The fear on the faces of the religious men and women in the room was very clear.

"We can fight on." Stated Priest Spiro before raising his hand over his head. "In the name of the Lords of Kobol we can fight on."

He expected a cry of victory to fill the air and so it did but it was a soft, almost halfhearted war cry.

"Your lords haven't helped you yet." countered General Leong coldly, she was glade that the Asgard had destroyed all the Goa'uld who would have fitted in the Greek pantheon thousands of years earlier. If a Goa'uld most of all one going by the name of one of the Greek gods had made it through to today, he could have gained a large fighting force almost at once by coming to the colonies. If he also gave them technology then the war would have been more of struggle but that wasn't the case. All the Goa'uld system lords and most of the minor lords had been hunted down or overthrown in the past few years, aside from the Tok'ra the Goa'uld were gone as a power from the galaxy. "It is time to put down your weapons and accept the reality of the situation before more people die."

"You just afraid of us." Cried Vice President Spiro "We will make you bleed."

"We have lost, 8,046 soldiers, marines and airmen so far in this war with about three times that wounded but given our medical technology all of them should make a full recovery." countered General Leong "That is compared to your 75 million dead and given the average outcomes of war that it is between two to three times the number wounded as killed that is around 200 million wounded in some way. We have four worlds now and our population is booming at that rate you will be long gone before we even break a tenth of your current KIA. Besides with the Ragnarok it isn't really needed, we can whip away your worlds with a few turns of keys."

That caused more looks among the civilians in the room, it was clear that the religious will of the people was breaking. Internally General Leong smiled at that, she was pushing them toward the choice she and the Tau'ri wanted. Now it was time for a bluff.

"Hell we could do it with a single attack in each system, one fire and all the worlds in a system could be whipped clean of any evidence of advance life." Stated General Leong, that was a bluff. To make the technology in the Ragnarok mobile it had to be depowered compared to a land based version like the Dakara weapon. The Ragnarok couldn't fire in a vacuum and therefor was nothing short of a target in space, if they wanted to fire in space they would have to install a power source so large that the ship couldn't move effectively. "However that wouldn't make tactical sense, consider Libran they have already accepted our terms and therefor they will not be harmed in any actions we carry out."

"Your forces and ours have meet in the theater of war, your forces are broken, your forces are defeated. This war ends today." stated General Leong "I have offered President Adar to come to the Missouri to have final discussion about terms of surrender, that will happen within the hour if you are not onboard the Missouri by then I will begin taking down what really matters to you."

"You may destroy our homes but we will still carry on the fight." Stated Priest Spiro

"I am not going to destroy your homes, not yet." Stated General Leong with a smirk as she pulled out a small computer pad and tapped a command. "I know what really matters to you. I will show you. Missouri do you have the target locked?"

"We do." Confirmed a voice "We have Asgard beam weapons locked on the Colonial bunker code named Zeus Chest."

The colonial's eyes widened, Zeus Chest was the code name for the war bunker where the religions artifices and relics from all 12 worlds. The most holy items in the 12 colonies was located there.

"Keep that lock if any movement happens that appears to be pulling out those items, fire at will and then move on to the next shrine on the strike list." ordered General Leong as the Colonial eyes widened in fear in rage.

"Yes, General." confirmed the voice at the end of the line.

"You will not touch that holy place!" yelled Priest Spiro. What the colonials didn't know was that the Tau'ri had already raided the bunker years ago and had taken the 12 lights of Kobol which were in truth ZPMs. Studying those ZPMs had led to many breakthroughs, while the Tau'ri still couldn't make ZPMs of their own, not even the Asgard could do that. They had gotten a lot closer, they were just missing some key items most of all an element so rare that not even the Asgard knew of its esistance and the Ancients had kept the location of deposits so secret it wasn't even their database.

"I would rather destroy those relics and shrines then destroy people and their homes." Stated General Leong "besides you care more for those things then you do for living people and if the Ragnarok fires they will be destroyed along with everything else."

"We will never surrender." stated Priest Spiro

"Then we will watch all your shrines and holy places go up in smoke before we fire the Ragnarok." stated General Leong "Either way, millions if not billions will die and every trace of your faith on Sagittarian. The holy faith that you hold up so high will be gone, the temples that took centuries to raise by hand gone in a flash. Unless you come to the Missouri and accept the term of surrender."

The holy men and women, who moments ago had been willing to die for their faith now shared looks. They were willing to die, but not willing to see the holy shrines of their faith destroyed in such a way. A look a defeat crossed their faces as the tide of defeat washed over them all, even the Spiro brothers who had been the strongest pro war supporters couldn't stand up to the tide.

"We will come to the Missouri." stated Vice President Spiro "However I will not surrender until some conditions are met."

"If they are reasonable demands, we may consider them." stated General Leong, she knew that the leaders of the Tau'ri would give in to some small demands. They wanted this war over, the people wanted it over, even the men and women fighting it wanted it over. The Tau'ri had a golden future in front of them, with all the new technology at their fingertips, the new worlds to explore and settle they wanted to move on. They had gotten a good fill of retribution for Valhalla by the crushing of the colonies and they had shown the galaxy full of larger forces number wise that the Tau'ri where the power players. They may not have as many ships as the free Jaffa or Lucian Alliance factions who had token over the massive fleets of the Gua'uld system lords which number in the thousands of ships but Tau'ri ships where far better in terms of power. Now it was time to punish the leaders and move on to more projects. "I will see you on the Missouri and if you try to harm the ship in any way, the Ragnarok will fire at once."

**Darkness was quickly falling over Tauron, the hour long stand down had come and gone and no sound of gunfire could be heard. **Acaci sat in a what had been a large high school sports field, armed Tau'ri guards moved through the mass of captured Colonials in pairs with armed guards moving around the roof of the nearby High school building. No one was going to attempt anything and everyone knew it but they all knew what role they had to play and so they did. For the Tau'ri's created they didn't beat anyone or even attempted to hurt anyone for no good reason. The only time she had seen the Tau'ri guards act out of line was when someone attempted to steal someone else's ration of food. The Guards had pepper sprayed him and took his food and gave it to the women he tried to take it from. Overall considering what they could have done it was light and the thefts own people did worse to him.

"Private Acacia." said a voice as a shadow fell over her, she looked up to see a Tau'ri in battle armor however he didn't have his helmet on. Instead it was hanging from a strap attached to his belt. His rifle was slung over his shoulder and his pistol was holstered. What was strange was that he was all alone, it took her a moment to remember who this was.

"Lefeld right?" inquired Acaci as she got to her feet, she was an inch or two shorter then then man, both of them had dirty uniforms on and both of them had some blood on them as well.

"Yes, if you don't mind getting out of here." Said Lefeld as Acacia's eyes widened, she had not seen any of the guards take advantage of prisoners. Then again part of her wouldn't have mind that much if he didn't force it, he was cute and borderline handsome in that uniform even if it was an enemy. Her thoughts disappeared as he went on. "Your friend Medea is it? Is getting out of surgery."

"Oh…thank you." said Acacia as she stood up. "So do I follow you?"

"Afraid not you have to stay in front of me, safety protocols." Explained Lefeld as he pointed her toward the entrees to the field which opened up onto a short pathway that lead to the school itself. An recon vehicle with a heavy machine gun sat there watching everything. The guards looked at Lefeld with some confusion but he quickly explained that he was bringing her to see her injured friend and all the codes where in order so they let them pass. She entered the school which had been taken over as a medical center, the technology on display took her breath away.

She walked down the hallways looking into rooms. She saw a Tau'ri solider sitting on a chair with a badly cut arm under a strange light. Before her eyes the wound began to heal at an rate that looked closer to magic then anything the colonial technology could do. A lot of the wounded here colonials both civilian and military members. The civilians where being treated and release, while the military and those captured in arms against the Tau'ri where treated and then sent into the POW camp. She was guided toward of all things a math room where her friend lied on a cot, her legs where still gone but she looked a lot better. Her color was good and she unlike Acacia was clean, she turned her head a bit and looked at her friend.

"So you made it too." Said Medea as Acacia ran forward and hugged her friend, Lefeld stayed back by the door watching the two women he had captured earlier in the day.

"Lieutenant?" inquired a Doctor as he noticed the paratrooper.

"Doctor, I brought a prisoner who is friends is under your care." Explained the Lieutenant as both of them stood by the doorway out of hearing range of the two women.

"Why?" inquired the Doctor with a raised eyebrow.

"Just being kind, and my troopers are all resting right now and there is only so long you can stand around doing nothing." Explained the American Paratrooper.

"I see." said the doctor as he looked at the two young women and grinned. "Doesn't hurt that the one you brought in is pretty good looking."

"Sir, I have no idea what you are talking about." stated Lefeld as the Doctor chuckled a bit.

"Sure, Lieutenant." stated the Doctor "And by the way, my grandfather met my grandmother in 1945 was selling potatoes to American soldiers who had just crossed into Germany. Enemies one day can become friends the next day, and in some cases more than friends."

Lefeld said nothing but the doctor moved forward and explained a few things to Media who nodded her head in understanding. With that part of the job done he moved on to his next duty, Lefeld let the two women talk for a while longer before moving to collect Acaci.

"Sorry time to go." said Lefeld

"Alright, I'll see you later. When you are walking around on cloned legs." said Acacia as she hugged Media before being lead back out of the hospital. When they got outside she turned and looked at the paratrooper who had been trying to kill her and her friend earlier and was now showing such kindness.

"Thanks for doing that." said Acaci but before Lefeld could say anything a sound filled the air. It was a haunting sound, a mournful call and it had a profound effect on the Tau'ri. She could even see tears coming down from the faces of some of the Tau'ri, Lefeld seamed moved. When it stopped she asked. "What was that?"

"Taps, it is our song of the dead. We play it at funerals and the like." explained Lefeld

"We have something slimier." explained Acaci "We aren't so different in the end."

"True." admitted Lefeld as he lead her back into the camp.

**While almost everyone on Earth and every other Tau'ri worlds were celebrating the upcoming victory over the 12 colonies of Kobol people still had to go to work. **There where major projects going on all over the world, cities where being upgraded with all the new technology that came from the Stargate Program, Ancients and the Asgard. Roads where becoming smarter, energy grids where being upgraded and homes where getting more futurist.

One of the major projects on Earth was in the bay of Gibraltar, in the middle of the bay which opened up into the straights of Gibraltar which linked the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Here a massive project was under way, rising from the bay was the soon to be new capital of the Tau'ri. Since they selecting a single capital would have been hard because of tension depending on which nation got the capital a new capital had to be built. Put the Capital in the United States and China would throw a fit, place it in China and the Americans throw a fit, same would be in almost every place in world, so a neutral site was needed. In this case, it was decided that an Ancient style city ship would be constructed and turned into the new Capital of the Tau'ri. The city wouldn't have space flight but beside that it would be the equal to Atlantis in every way and even larger in size. The name was still being debated but the designed had been settled and construction had begun.

The city was still in the early stages of construction with only the base structure done, like Atlantis it would have six piers shooting out from a central area. None of the planned buildings ranging from all the governmental buildings to everything else a city would need. The plan was for the floating city which still had no official agreed upon name to be finished and ready for the government of the Tau'ri to move into within the next five years. Once finished it would move out to sea and take up position in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Even that had to be a compromised between the different nations, while the capital would be located in the Atlantic the orbital space port was located over the Pacific Ocean. The only building which had really started to rise up from the base was the central capital building which would server as the meeting central for the Congress of the Tau'ri. Even that was just a shell of the a building and would be a long time before being finished. Crews were working on the building even as people celebrated the victory and waved Tau'ri flags. Flying from the top of the tallest point of the rising building was the blue and silver flag of the Tau'ri. That flag would rise up along with the building. A new future was blooming and this would be a crown jewel in that future which explained why even while people were celebrating workers were at their job building that new capital.

**President Richard Adar took a deep breath as the Raptor moved ever closer toward the giant sword like ship which was the Tau'ri battleship Missouri.** It floated over Sagittarian like a sword ready to strike at the Colonies. He wasn't alone in the raptor, members from every colony aside from Sagittarian, Gememon and Libran where onboard the raptor. There was a slight bounced as the Raptor passed between the shield and the open space. The raptor landed on the hanger bay, he looked out the cockpit of the Presidential Raptor. It was larger than the standard raptor allowing more people and communication gear but lacked the weapon mounts. From the window he could see multiple of their Eagle fighters sitting in bays weapons loaded, their other spacecraft on standby as well. All around him was the might of the Tau'ri on full display two other raptors sat on the landing area. One had the Sagittarian flag on it, that would be the Spiro brothers for sure and the other had the Libran flag painted on the side with the royal crest below it. Then he saw them, he had expected armed guards to take him and so they came but they were not dressed in combat armor. Instead they were dress uniforms with of bolt action rifles on their shoulders. He knew that the Tau'ri didn't seem to use bolt action rifles aside from some reports of snipers so he knew these where ceremonial weapons. That became clear as the weapons where ceremonial, the wood and metal where polished to a mirror shine. Each of them had bayonets sticking out from under the barrel.

"Come, it is time for the saddest day in the history of the Colonies." stated Adar as he moved out of the raptor. The honor guard snapped to attention as he walked past, however there was looks in some of their Tau'ri faces that they would rather spear him with the bayonets then show him any honor as a President. He did he could see that there were other armed and ready soldiers ready to gun him down if he attempted anything. He moved toward a man in a dress uniform which stood at the end of the honor guard.

"President Adar follow me." said the man as he lead them into the heart of the ship. The corridors where empty aside from soldiers these in full body armor standing in front of every closed door. There was a path and they were not going to get off it any time soon. When they reached their destination, it was a long room with a large table in the center. Along one wall was the seal of the Tau'ri in bronze with what had to be the ships own seal beside it. In two of the four corners where Tau'ri flags and in the other two where colonial flags. Along that side of the table was 13 seats across from them where only three other seats. In four of those seats where Vice President Spiro and his bother Priest Spiro, the other two had the King of Libran and strangely Dr. Baltar. Adar shook his head as he moved to the center of the line of 13 chairs and took his place in the center of the line. The other representatives from the other colonies sat in their own chairs. Most of them where only there for ceremonial reasons. He also noticed in the back corner of the room where some news crews both colonial and Tau'ri in nature, he had to expect that. The Tau'ri where putting a show and he would have done the same thing.

When he sat down he noticed that the chairs across from them, where the Tau'ri would be sitting in time was slightly higher than his chair. It was an old tactic, one that he had used multiple times in the past against union leaders and others but no one in the colonies would have dared to do it to the President. But the Tau'ri dared and more importantly they were powerful enough to make it rightful that they should. That is when the Tau'ri entered the room, he knew them all the elderly Minister Fang Gang moved with the help of a cane, the female General Leong who had dealt so much death and destruction to the colonies and lastly Dr. Woolsey. It was Woolsey who sat down across from him with the General and the old position on either side of him.

"Welcome to the Missouri, the flagship of the Tau'ri fleet. We all know why we are here, this war is over and now it is time to make the peace." Greeted Dr. Woolsey "First there are a couple of none negatable demands that your government will have to agree too if we are to proceed with the talks. First the Tau'ri and any other races in the galaxy are outside the control of the 12 colonies of Kobol. Second Valhalla otherwise known as Kobol belongs to the Tau'ri. Third from this day forward the 12 colonies of Kobol will have freedom of and from religion. Fourth that the Colonies admit fault for the war and will hand over all persons who had anything to do with the nuclear strike on Valhalla for trail."

Adar took a breath as he prepared to make his opening statement, he already knew he was going to loss most if not all of his points. This was a surrender not a talk as the Tau'ri claimed but there was some hope that he could win some small victories among the mountains of crushing defeats.

"We the people of the 12 colonies of Kobol have suffered the greatest damage from this war and we feel that we have suffered enough. It is in that spirit that we agree to the first three terms you put forward here today. We will release all claim to the Tau'ri and other civilizations, we will also enshrine freedom of an from religion and lastly we will give up all claim on Valhalla or as we call it Kobol." Stated Adar as Woolsey leaned back in his chair, clearly happy that the 1st three demands had already been agreed too. "However we take issues with the last demand, how could we get a fair trail in a Tau'ri court? Also isn't it unfair for you to put us on trial after you destroyed Aquaria and carried out other attacks against the common rules of war."

"War is a contest of skill against skill and rules are limited." countered General Leong "We sent you the rules of war we would follow about treatment of prisoners and the like. We have followed them, you have too for the most part."

"President Adar is not talking about treatment of prisoners, you have fought in a very un honorable way. You do not follow the proper military tactics." Stated the member for Tauron.

"Maybe from your point that is true, but so what." Said General Leong to the member from Tauron. To anyone from Tauron having someone care so little about honor and worse to affront their code was a major adfront. Before the Council woman could exploded Baltar jumped in.

"Council Woman, with all due respect." Interrupted Baltar "The Tau'ri have shown us how much better they are at war, and in war anything goes. They have better tactics, better weapons and better technology we should be thankful that until now we have had such a long and peaceful history. The lesson the Tau'ri used against us all came from a long and blood soaked history of fighting each other."

"True." Admitted Woolsey as he decided to concede a small point. "As for the fair trail, you are correct no court within the Tau'ri would fine you innocent. We have made contact with the Nox and they have agreed to have a three panel judge in which your leaders behind the attack will be judged and sentence."

"And you will honor their judgement." Inquired the King of Libran

"We shall and the Nox do not believe in the Death Sentences, neither does most of the nations of the Tau'ri. The worse sentence you could get from them is life imprisonment." confirmed Dr. Woolsey, not adding that most of the nations would toss that restraint out the window in this case. A nuclear strike makes most people want the blood of those who carried out the attack. "Under those terms do you agree to that provision?"

Adar took a deep breath as all eyes turned on him. He would be the main person taken in, he had been the one who ordered the ships in. He had planned to have their arrive alarm the Tau'ri into paying more attention to the 12 colonies and instead they had started a war.

"I agree." confirmed Adar, he knew he had no real choice.

"Good, now we move on to the finer details of the peace." Said Woolsey "Your borders for the most part will remain the same."

Adar and the others blinked they hadn't expect that, he had expected that a large area of space would have to be surrendered to the Tau'ri.

"We will take the space around where Nysa used to be and if any colonial ships enter that area without our permission there will be pain." Stated Woolsey "We will also be taking the corresponding mining colony of Kiria."

Here that was a surprise, Kiria was almost a twin to Nysa only on the opposite side of Colonial space to the Tau'ri holding. There was no reason why the Tau'ri would want it, that any colonials could see. Then the answer came out.

"This mining colony will be given to the Cylons as a reward for their help in this conflict." Stated Woolsey as the Colonials winced in pain, giving territory away to their cousins was one thing but the Cylons was another. That was horrible, then it got worse.

"Cylon and Tau'ri trading ships will be allowed to pass freely across colonial space, they will pay for any landing fees and the like as long as they are equal to what is charge to other colonies trading ships of matching size." stated Fang Gan, as the Colonials winced again. They had to sit back and take it, now Cylon ships would be crossing their territory and they could do nothing to stop it. "Do you agree to those terms."

"We don't really have a choice." countered the Virgon member "However the Cylons would have to be fools to try to trade with anyone, letting them pass should be fine but no warships."

"No warships." agreed Adar "That would be a major risk to our people and we can't accept that in any way."

"We can agree no Cylon warships." stated General Leong "We will get to that part in a little while."

"Very well, we will return to that." Confirmed Adar

"Now as your military." stated General Leong "Your armed forces will be cut in half with no more than 125 battlestars or ships of similar weight and length being allowed in any fleet you build. Nuclear weapons will also be stripped from your military. We will revisit your fleet size every 10 years and maybe in time we will lift the restrictions."

Here the colonials really winced, they had once had fleets of thousands of ships before the Tau'ri came and brushed them all aside with ease. One hundred and twenty five battlestars would only be around a 10th of the number of battlestars sized ships they had before. Without nuclear weapons they had no teeth to do any harm to the Tau'ri forces or even the Cylons if they came to repay the Colonies for their enslavement.

"We will be focusing more on rebuilding everything we lost." advised Dr. Baltar before pointing his finger at the Tau'ri. Outside of the Tau'ri the people around the table didn't know but he was working both for Colonials and for the Cylons. He had been told what the Tau'ri demands would be and as such had told the Tau'ri the moves he would play to get what both sides wanted as painless as possible. Here was where the Tau'ri would have to feel a slight pain. "However if the Cylons should launch an attack on us the Tau'ri will come to our defense."

The Tau'ri shared a quick look, a look that said they really didn't want to agree to that. Even though they had already talked it over with the Cylons and had reached an accord. The Tau'ri knew that the Cylons wanted Baltar to rise to power because he was going to be with a Cylon model 6, that would place a humanoid cylon spy in a key location in the Colonial Government. The Tau'ri wanted him there as well, Baltar was reasonable and none religious, he would work very well for the Tau'ri goals in this area.

"Very well, if the Cylons launch a none provoked attack on you we will come to your aid." Stated Woolsey "if you carry out the attack then we will not come to your aid."

"Very well." stated Dr. Baltar, the camera zoomed in on that. The camera operated by a cylon model 3 and with that, Dr. Baltar's already very good stock among the Colonial people went up. He had gained something from the Tau'ri and that was important.

"Next we have war reparations." Stated Woolsey as the Colonies took a deep breath, Adar had thought the worse was over.

"We will not claim any monetary demands from you, in truth you don't have anything we want in that sense. We will however set up a military base or bases somewhere on or within the space above Aquaria." Stated Doctor Woolsey as the colonials looked at each other. That was clearly a stupid move by the Tau'ri, Aquaria was a nuclear wasteland and would be like that for at least a couple hundred thousand years. The space above it was crowed with multiple large asteroids which would make any stations in orbit at major risks from asteroid strikes and colonial forces could sneak up on the base.

"Very well." agreed Adar

"Good and lastly as for the resettlement of Aquaria and it's role in the future government of the 12 colonies of Kobol." Said Dr. Woolsey as he enjoyed the stunned look on the colonial faces. "You seam surprised."

"It is just Aquaria will be highly radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years, you almost destroyed the planet with that nuclear strike." Stated the member of the Quorum from Aquaria

"If we let it go naturally yes, see the Ragnarok is not only a weapon it was originally designed as a terra former, it can clean up the radiation on Aquaria in…" Dr. Woolsey glanced at his computer pad. "Around 3 hours and with an additional week or so to bring all the asteroids down to the surface and reform the crust. Seeding plant and animal life will take longer considering we intend to increase the average temperature to a more habitual normal range similar to Caprica or Earth. If our estimates are right then in less than a year everything should be in place and the new settlers will take up residence."

The colonials just sat their opened mouth, it made sense now. The Tau'ri would have a military base on the ground and likely another one up in space. They would be in perfect position to monitor the Colonials and Tau'ri warships would become a normal sight in the system that contained the breadbasket world and the industrial heart world of the Colonies. They would be in a perfect position to cut off those worlds at any moment, destroying both industrial and food supply at once. Those two worlds had not been hit badly by the Tau'ri war and therefor they would help support the Colonies for a long time coming. If the Tau'ri cut them off the Colonies would fall apart with ease.

"New…settlers? You are going to settle Aquaria." Stated the member from Aquaria "That is our home."

"In a way, the religious refugees from Sagittarian need a place to go and if they don't want to leave the culture they have grown up in that seems to be a great place to settle them." Stated Dr. Woolsey "Besides they will be the ones to lead the world."

"What?" inquired the Quorum member from Aquaria.

"Well since Sagittarian and Gememon are worlds ruled by the religious element it seams right to have a counterbalance. Having the members of the Quorum from Aquaria be people who do not follow the religion of the Lords of Kobol will be a good balance in your new government." Stated Dr. Woolsey with a smile, a smile that wasn't shared by Adar. He like so many other political leaders knew how powerful politically Aquaria was. It was generally the swing vote in Quorum votes and even with such a small population it still had the same number of votes that larger worlds did. Having that power in the hands of none believers of the Lords of Kobol would play a major role in stopping any religious laws coming out of the Quorum. Add to that the Tau'ri forces over and on Aquaria and the likely migrations to Aquaria if they did become a planet like Caprica instead of an ice ball world. Multiple worlds in the colonies where over populated and even if it meant giving up religious laws and being more accepting of different ideas having living space would draw people in.

"We don't have a choice do we?" inquired Adar

"No." confirmed Woolsey as he looked at his two fellow Tau'ri. "Now it is time to address the harder issues, the religious issues."

"We already agreed to have…freedom of Religion." stated Vice President Spiro, making the last part of the sentence a curse. "Now you need to give us something."

"We are, we not going to destroy your shrines and other holy places. But Freedom of and from Religion has more to it. Your religious police are done, your reeducation camps are done." stated Woolsey "The other colonies in your government may have looked the other way so that they could have peace with you, but we will not. Your reeducation centers are torture centers and the people you have imprisoned have already been liberated, you will return the children you have taken from them as well. If you open them again or attempt anything like that again, you will pay for it in more ways than one."

"We do not fear death, if you don't show us respect we will leave and restart the fight." Stated Priest Spiro

"The door is right over there, leave and once all your shrines are gone and your cities are burning to the ground you will remember this chance." stated General Loeng with a voice like a glacier. "Then when all hope is lost we will fire the Ragnarok, we will not make your death fast, we will make it slow and painful. Do you really consider your faith so weak that you would risk that. Your faith is the most dominate in the Colonies, do you really think that it will fall apart because some different views are put forward."

"It will introduce a sickness into our society." countered Priest Spiro "We can't allow that."

"Your holiness." Interrupted Baltar "With all due respect, isn't your first job as a priest is to protect the people. Not just their souls but their bodies too? You would be destroying their bodies in the hopes of saving their souls, you can do both by just allowing them the freedom of choice. You can still spread the word of the Lords of Kobol, you just can't arrest people who are not willing to accept your view."

Then Baltar turned toward the Tau'ri across the table, it was time for another bit of preplanned theater.

"Maybe you can make arrangements to allow our people to visit Kobol or as you call it Valhalla." offered Baltar, then he pushed the offer into something that the Tau'ri hadn't already agreed to in secret. "Maybe we can even build a temple to Zeus and the Lords of Kobol there?"

"Yes." said Priest Spiro as he jumped on the idea, he wanted to place the corner stone of the new temple of Zeus on Kobol. He had wanted to do that since President Adar had come to him and revealed that they had found Kobol in return for his help controlling the more religious elements of society. "Let us pillage to Kobol, to build a temple to our Lords in a new City of the Gods."

Woolsey and the other Tau'ri leaned back a bit thinking over the idea, the religious elements in the colonies where obsessed with Kobol. If they couldn't get it totally under their control then maybe having the chance to visit a holy shrine on the holy world would be enough to make them lay down their weapons.

"I will have to check with our leaders on Earth, however I foresee no real problem with pilgrims going to Valhalla." stated Woolsey as Adar let out a breath. "However while there they will not be allowed to try to convert people to the faith and they will be under our laws."

"What!" yelled Priest Spiro, Adar's eyes widened he hadn't even considered that Priest Spiro may have wanted to try to send missionary to Kobol to convert the Tau'ri.

"You wouldn't want our missionaries to travel to your worlds would you?" inquired Woolsey as a look crossed Spiro face. "Maybe if you allowed that we would allow missionary from your religion on Valhalla?"

"A fair agreement." confirmed the King of Libran "Your holiness would you want to make that deal, to allow missionaries on both sides to work on the worlds?"

"No." said Spiro "But what of the temple, can we build a temple in the holy city of the Lords of Kobol?"

"That answer is more complex." stated General Leong who was in charge of Valhalla. "From my understanding the site which was the likely City of the Lords of Kobol as you call it has been declared a historical site and no new buildings will be going up there once the museum is finished. It will be kept as an historic site."

"I see." said Priest Spiro, as much as he didn't want to admit it that made sense. What he didn't know and what none of the Tau'ri was going to tell him was that the historical site on the coast of a large lake was now flanked to the South by Disney World Valhalla and to the North by the soon to be finished Universal Studios Valhalla theme parks.

"As for building a temple somewhere else on Valhalla, we can have some land set aside but I will stress your faith with not get any special help and will in fact be hated among the locals." Stated General Leong "If allowing you to build your temple brings about peace, then that is an easy condition we can agree too."

"I believe that is all, if you agree to that we can have the proper documents drawn up and you can review them as well as our leaders on Earth. When that is done we can move on to the final surrender ceremony." Stated Woolsey

"Alright." said the President of the twelves colonies in a defeated tone, the Tau'ri had won in almost every way. The only victories where that they would be allowed to visit Kobol and build a temple to the Lords of Kobol on it. Those two would be the main victory points, the other minor victory was that the leaders of the Colonies like Adar wouldn't be facing death because of the nuclear strike. Life in prison yes, death no. The Tau'ri was getting everything they wanted out of the deal, given the crushing defeat of the colonies it was to be expected.

"One last thing, we can't have Vice President Spiro become President once you are arrested, his attempted coup against you is more than enough to stay that shouldn't be allowed." stated Woolsey

"I believe the next person in the line of session still alive is our Secretary of education Laura Roslin." stated Adar as Woosely looked down at his computer pad, there wasn't much information about Laura Roslin on it but most of it said she had spoken out in cabinet meetings against the war. She had been in the background in the war, education took a background in a war.

"Acceptable, I recommend you bring her along to be sworn in as President when you are taken into custody." Stated Woosely as Adar nodded his head.

"What about any other leaders you want?" inquired Adar

"Most are either already captured or in the case of military leaders died in the war." countered Fang Gang "You are the main leader left who had anything likely to do with the attack."

"I see." Confirmed Adar, he had known a lot of the government had been killed but not so many.

"If that is all," said Woolsey before looking around the table. "Then we are dismissed."

**The dawn was breaking over Hypatia and the surrounding area, no gunfire had filled the night but each side was ready to start shooting at each other if the talks officially broke down.** They had yet to hear the final terms, not even the Tau'ri knew everything that was going on.

Inside one of the POW camps, sat Admiral Adama along with his son and Kara Thrace, this was a camp for high ranking officers that had been captured and others people of interests. Since Kara had been confirmed to have shot down a Tau'ri ship that made her and interest to the Tau'ri and his son had gone to the Tau'ri to another galaxy, that made him a target as well.

"Morning Kara." Said Lee as he offered her a piece of bread and a cup of hot tea.

"I wanted something more acholic." stated Kara, the two of them had slept side by side through the night. They didn't really have much choice, the Tau'ri didn't have enough cots for everyone so people where sleeping on grass and using their hands for pillows. At least the Tau'ri had handed out food with ease and had given blankets to people to cover up with.

"Sorry, none of that." Said Lee as he looked toward his father, he had gotten a cot. He was even offered his own room in a hotel that the Tau'ri had taken over. He had earned that because of his rank but had turned them down. He still hadn't gotten over his brother's death because of the pressure in his family to fly vipers and serve the people of the colonies. Then again as far as he knew his father was the only family he had left.

"Sir, any idea what we are going to do to get out of here?" inquired Kara "I think we could maybe stage an escape, I am just worried about that machine gun and that APC on the outside of the fence."

"What you don't see is the main concern." countered Lee as he pointed toward the Hills of Heroes which separated Hypatia and the flatlands which covered the bulk of the planet. The royal and silver flag of the Tau'ri flew over the flagpole which marked where the 75th infantry unit had held off the Cylons in the last war. The massive flag was clearly visible for miles away, a clear sign of the Tau'ri control over the area. "Those hills are swarming with Tau'ri, including a lot of guns."

"So…" started Starbucks as a sound filled the air, as powerful speakers on trucks which earlier had been used to distract the Colonials with sound effects and projecting images like the grim reaper came to life. None of the Colonials had ever heard the music before it started with string instruments before adding a piano, then vocals came in followed by brass instruments.

"We Gaze toward the sky?" inquired Kara as she made out one of the lines. None of the Colonials understood what it meant it but the Tau'ri sure did. It was as if their duties where momentary forgotten. They were celebrating like crazed sports fans, some even fired their weapons into the air. Others where dancing and hugging each other. The celebrations caused all the colonials even more confusion.

"YES!" yelled a nearby guard, other guards had their hands on their hearts while others saluted the flag flapping in the morning sun. One of the Guards got onto the twisted burnt remains of a Pallas tank and raised his rifle over his head and began to jump up and down on top of what had once been the most powerful tank type ever made by the colonies. Unknown to the guard, a south African woman a camera crew had been reporting the news about the influx of prisoners and had gotten an image of her with her weapon raised high, on top of the tank with the flapping Tau'ri flag in the background. A ray of morning light cut through the scene making a powerful image that would soon go viral.

**In Lezbha Jager was standing in the Copula of his Leopard III tank when the music reached his ear, he like every other Tau'ri knew what it meant.** They had waited hours for repairs and they had just finished, he had been angry most of that time wanting to move away from this spot. Not anymore, now he couldn't be happier.

"Is that what I think it is sir?" inquired the Gunner

"It sure is." Confirmed Jager with a huge smile on his face as the tank crew cried out in joy, they knew what that meant. Every Tau'ri knew what it meant and they couldn't be happier.

**Elsewhere in Lezbha, Lieutenant Robert Lefeld had been once again escorting the prisoner Acacia to see her friend when the music started playing.** Like all the Tau'ri he had stopped in his tracks and listened to the song for a moment. Acaci titled her head a bit as she looked at him, he didn't have his helmet on so she could see his full face. Tears where running down, tears of joy, then he began to mouth the words of the song.

"We reach for the sky together, out of many one." Sung Lefeld with tears in his eyes as he turned and saluted toward where someone had hung the blue and silver flag of the Tau'ri.

"What is it, what is that song?" inquired Acaci, like so many colonials she was wondering that. Unlike most she could find out easily enough.

"That is our new national anthem." stated Lefeld with tears in his eyes. "The anthem for all Tau'ri, and before we started the invasion we were told that when it played it meant that the war was over. A peace agreement had been reached by both sides. We have won."

**Well I hope you liked this chapter, the terms to end the war has been reached and now it is time to bring this story to a close. I have one maybe two chapters left in the story but do not worry, 1****st**** will come a cross over story with the World War Series, followed by a story with a cross over with Mass Effect. If anyone is interested I based the idea for the new Tau'ri anthem off the song The dream of flight Civilization VI. Now I until next time please keep reading, thanks Wilkins75.**


	80. Chapter 80

**Chapter 80 The Guns are Silent**

It happened onboard the Battleship Missouri, the Tau'ri wanted it that way and as the victories they got what they wanted. The official surrender of the 12 colonies of Kobol would take place in the hanger of the battleship, they could have done it in a much smaller setting and the whole thing would have been done sooner. The whole thing was a show and the Tau'ri where the ring masters. The center runway was clear of people however lining each edge line was a long line of honor guards. All of them where in dress uniforms with half of them holdings rifles in attention and the other half holding flags. Not just the Tau'ri flag but flags from every nation in the Tau'ri alliance in a repeating pattern of armed soldiers, national flag, armed solider Tau'ri flag before repeating across the length of the runway. Behind them where more soldiers in BDU and some in battle armor, they stood in formation and watched.

"The darkest day in our history." said President Adar to himself as he looked at the representatives from each of the colonies gathered with him at the end of the runway, behind him the raptors sat and behind them was the darkness of space. That wasn't true, there was a shield holding in the air and heat because if there wasn't they would all be dead, he could also see the curve of his home planet of Caprica. The Tau'ri battleship had journey to the capital world of the Colonial government and had taken position over where Caprica City would have been if it hadn't been whipped off the map by the Ragnarok. As he looked out into the space he could see more Tau'ri warships along with their smaller fighters and bombers, the smaller craft where flying in parade formation for the event.

"I hate to disagree with you Mr. President." said the woman Dr. Baltar had brought with him, Doctor Jenny Oldstone. She was beside him and he had been fighting the want to check her out, with a body any professional model would want and wearing a red dress, she was a standout. She was now engaged to Baltar and he couldn't help but be envoys of the man. "But the darkest day in the History of the 12 colonies had to be either the creation of the Cylons or the day they rebelled."

"Maybe." Admitted President Adar as he looked toward the Spiro brothers who would be signing for Sagittarian and for the faith. The next president of the Colonies Laura Roslin was also here and she would be sworn in as President once they left the Missouri, he, vice President Spiro and his brother wouldn't be leaving. He would be charge for the nuclear attack on Valhalla and ordering the attempted WMD attack in the middle of the war along with other smaller crimes. The Vice President would be charged with attempting to kill the Nox Diplomat along with the ordering the gas and nuclear attack on Valhalla in the war. Priest Spiro would be charged with being in command of the Religious police on Sagittarian and the reeducation camps, the Tau'ri considered the actions there as crimes.

"It is time." Said the man who would be signing for the Colonial Military, Admiral Adama had been pulled out of the Tau'ri prison camp on Tauron and now stood beside his President as the highest living known Colonial military leaders. The rest of the Admirals and Generals higher then him had been killed either on their ships or in their bases.

"I know." Said Adar with pain in his voice as they began the long walk toward the Tau'ri gathering at the far end of the hanger. General Leong, Minister Fang Gan and Dr. Woolsey where all there but they weren't alone, standing with them were five more people. One of them was them was a woman dressed in a paints suit, another three where dressed in military uniforms two of them men and the other a woman. The last one was a man in fine suit, he had seen him before. Jonas Quinn he thought the name was. As the group of colonials moved closer to where the Tau'ri where gathered they saw that a table had been set up in the center with a blue table cover over it all. In the front was the same upside down V with a strange circle thing around it in silver. Sitting behind the table where a couple of chairs with only a single one in front of it. Sitting on the table where two large leather bound binders. Both of them where opened up to show identical copies of the peace treaty between the Colonies and the Tau'ri. Both where blinded in red leather with the seal of the Tau'ri in the upper right hand of the corner and the Colonial Seal in the left-hand side. It was also clear which one would be taken by the Tau'ri and which would be their copy, one was in the rectangle shape that the Tau'ri liked in their paper and the other one had the corners cut off like all paper in the colonies where. Along the back side of the hanger where more Tau'ri soldiers, some of them where sitting on top of Owls, Eagles and other space craft to get a better view. All around them where multiple video cameras and news crews a lot of them from the Tau'ri but all the major Colonial networks where there to broadcast the event.

Given a prime view of the signing of the treaty where other diplomats not actively taking part in the ceremony. Most of them where human and dressed in suits and pants suits of some shade or another, or in a military uniform. Some of the people in uniforms where not in Tau'ri uniforms, he assumed they were from some human world outside of the Tau'ri direct control. Some of the humans where dressed in robes with strange tattoos on their foreheads and he even saw an older man with a golden tattoo on his forehead beside a larger black man with a similar tattoo. He also saw the strange race they had seen on the TV during that ceremonial broadcast from Valhalla, the Nox. They stood out as well but also watching the events where three Cylon Centurions, two in the chrome color and one in a bright gold.

"Cylons." Grumbled Adar as he glared at the mortal enemies of the Colonial people.

"Well what to expect the Cylons where likely to be here." Added Dr. Baltar as he stood beside his soon to be wife.

Adar walked up to the area and waited as the Tau'ri group approached them.

"President Adar, I am the President of Brazil and the current President of the Tau'ri alliance." Greeted the Brazilian woman, before looking toward the older of the Tau'ri in uniform. "This is General O'Neill the head of the Tau'ri military, beside him is General Carter commander of Stargate Command and lastly is General Rag-Sing, he was command of Valhalla when you carried out the attack."

"I see." Said Adar as he started introducing the people he had brought to the signing.

**While the signing was starting, work was already underway, the Tau'ri military was moving. They were not waiting for the official treaty to be signed.** They began to pull back from positions near the front lines of the battle, the main vehicle moving was the Lion heavy tanks. Since those tanks were unable to travel through the gate they would have to go onto the Hadrian class transports. Those ships began to descend toward the surface of Tauron, but they didn't come empty handed in their holds where a large supply of food, medical supplies, clothing and even some construction equipment.

Standing in the copula of his Leopard tank near the outskirts of Lezbha Colonel Jager watched the Lion tanks get loaded onto one of the massive ships. The tanks where loaded onto the top part of the massive transports while shipping containers where attached to the bottom part of the ship. While Jager watched some of the loot taken by some of the soldiers was loaded onto the containers. Some of it was kind of funny, he watched as some solider tried to get what looked to be a piano into one of the containers. A female solider was actually carrying what looked to be a wedding dress, seeing that caused Spiro to laugh, his head was poking out of the drivers compartment..

"Something funny Private?" inquired Jager to his driver who was from Sagittarian.

"It is just, that is a funeral dress." explained Spiro as the woman carried what Jager would have assumed to be a wedding dress. It did look like a wedding dress with all the white lace and the general pattern. "In traditional Tauron funerals the person being buried wears white while the living family members wear black gloves."

"I would have thought that is a wedding dress." admitted Jager "However if I may inquire what do you think of all this?"

"Taking loot from a battlefield is common in our history. I mean war is uncommon but taking stuff from the battlefield is common in those wars." stated Spiro before looking down into his part of the tank. "I took some things I wanted, mostly toys from TVs shows I loved when I was still a kid and I haven't been able to find on Valhalla."

"I see, well I am sure they were be trade deals in the future between the Colonials and us." Stated Jager

"Sir, do you know where we are going to be assigned after this is all over?" inquired his gunner

"Not sure, I imagine that they will begin releasing people from their contracts and people will go back to their civilian lives." Stated Jager as a career solider he would stay in uniform. "I imagine that the army will get the bulk of the cuts, they are still building warships on Valhalla after all. We still lag behind by a lot when it comes to the ship numbers."

"But our ships are so much better than anyone else's in the galaxy." countered his gunner

"But our enemies outnumber us by a large percentage and numbers hold their own advantages." countered Jager "If the Lucian Alliance factions all united or if the free Jaffa united again together into a single force they would poses a force large enough to challenge us, maybe even beat us. So while I don't think they will build warships as fast as they had been they will still build them."

"Nice for the people in space but what about us in the mud?" inquired the loader

"Well this is all unofficial. So you didn't hear it from me." Started Jager

"Of course." confirmed Loader

"Word is they are going to set up local trading posts on certain worlds, like of like a common market area for smaller worlds whose people aren't part of the Tau'ri alliance but know of the gate can travel to have an open market." Stated Jager

"A market we will guard off course." Stated the loader

"Correct, we will also be a fast reaction post for any trouble." Stated Jager "They are also going to set up common schools."

"Smart SOBs." Stated Spiro "Common schools headed by us means that in a couple generations those worlds will be more willing to join the Tau'ri and they will not be backwater people who haven't even invented the steam engine."

"Maybe you are right." admitted Jager "I wouldn't be surprised if that happens here, in a couple generations the 12 colonies of Kobol may be folded into an even greater Tau'ri alliance spreading across multiple star systems."

"What about the worlds in our space that don't know about the stargate?" inquired Spiro "The colonies didn't have a stargate, I imagine there are other worlds which didn't have a gate or lost their gate in some way or another."

"Your right of course." Stated Jager as a flight of Eagle fighters flew over the tank. "I imagine without the war taking up so much of their focus we will start actually exploring more again, and making contact with races we haven't meet yet."

"I wonder what their take will be when they learn about the treaty which places their worlds under our control." Stated Spiro "Probably as well as we took it when the Colonials claimed that they controlled over us. I just hope we have more wisdom to deal with those issues then the colonials did."

"I hope you are right and I think our leaders will be, there are a lot of unpopulated worlds and we have a lot of space to grow." Confirmed Jager as he looked down at the small computer which was attached to his forearm. "I personally am looking forward to taking some time off."

"I am with you there." Confirmed the Loader "I want to see this new Northern Ocean on Mars, I heard the beaches there are very nice and the weather is very nice. Similar southern France in climate I heard."

"I have heard that as well, but I think I will take a holiday to the Alpes myself." Stated Jager, he had always enjoyed mountain climbing. "On second thought maybe I will go to mars and climb one of the mountains there, make it into the history books as the first man to climb them."

"What about you Spiro?" inquired the Loader

"I just want to visit Earth, I haven't been there I haven't left Valhalla." Admitted Spiro "I want to be stationed on Earth and far away from the colonies. I don't want to be near this place anymore."

"Well I am sure you can ask for to be stationed on Earth, most people will be asking to be stationed outside of Earth, they want to explore the unknown." Advised Jager before thinking about it. "Maybe if we can all get some leave time, we take our driver on a drinking tour of our homeland."

"Yes, I can't wait to take you to the Hofbrauhaus in Munich." offered the gunner, aside from Spiro the entire tank crew was made of natives from Germany. By now the 1st transport had taken off and the second one was moving in to load up the weapons of war.

**Elsewhere with the Tau'ri flag flapping over their heads, the artillery units which had been the 1****st**** group to open fire on the Colonial enemies from their positions on the Hill of Heroes began to pull out**. The large towed field guns were being attached to the back of trucks and began to roll down the road. They moved toward the Stargate where some of the units where already marching through the gate. The Tau'ri weren't going to stay around long, they had crushed the Colonials and it was time for the bulk of them to leave. A few engineer groups, medical units and MPs groups where staying behind to maintain order until the Colonial civilian police in places like Hypatia could be reformed. The police had been on the front lines of the invasion and they had died along with soldiers. The engineers where staying to help fix up key locations while the medical groups where treating the wounded. The other duty that had to be done was grim but it had to be carried out, the collection of Colonial dead. While collecting the Tau'ri dead was easy, they had broadcasters imbedded into their power armor and into chips on the back of their necks. When a Tau'ri solider died, their bodies where beamed onboard one of the ships in orbit, that allowed them to keep a grim count of the dead. The colonials had nothing like that. The colonial dead was spread out across multiple battlefields in urban and rural areas. Some of those bodies would never be found.

**Onboard the Missouri the speeches had from some of the Tau'ri representatives had come to an end and now the official signing could happen.** The Tau'ri sat behind the desk with a long line of pens ready for the signing, all of them appeared to be custom made for the event showing that the Tau'ri had planned ahead. The first man to sign was Minister Fan Gang as he signed one of the documents before doing the next one. Next came two representatives from the colonies, they did it without a smile on their faces like the Tau'ri did. So it went, since the Colonials had more representatives they had to sign it more often, until there was only General Leong, Admiral Adama, the Tau'ri President and himself who had yet to sign.

Admiral Adama moved forward and looking at his assigned signing spot for a moment signed the treaty that would shrink the colonial navy to a faction of what it once been. General Leong went next, signing for the Tau'ri forces which had beaten the Colonial forces with tactics and technology that would have been seen as impossible months ago.

Adar lowered his head as he moved toward the table and sat down at the table. He picked up his own pen and looked at the paper, when he signed it would all be over. He would face a likely lifetime prison sentence, he would go down in history as the President who surrender the colonies. He had envisioned a ceremony like this a long time ago, but that would have been the joining of their Earthly cousins to the greater union of the Colonies of Man. Now it was their cousins which would hold the power, they had won. With a sigh Adar signed the surrender documents before the Tau'ri President signed for the Tau'ri alliance. With that the signing documents was done and only a single speech was left to be given.

General Leong stood at the table with the two surrenders documents signed before her, as head of the military forces she was given the honor of the last speech, the speech which would mark the official end of the war.

"As the Legendary Enlightened General Sun Tzu said over two thousand years ago, the art of war is of vital importance to the state. It is a matter of Life and Death, a road either to safety or to ruin." Started General Leong "We have seen death on both sides, we have seen the effects of some of the most deadly weapons ever deployed on the battlefield. Men and women on both sides have meet each other on the field of honor and found that there is no honor on that field. We have reached an agreement to end this war, a war which was on some levels pointless and on some levels needed. This war has cost the Tau'ri innocent lives ever since the mushroom cloud rose over the fields of Valhalla, but it has also brought us closer. Citizens from every nation, nations which had been enemies in the past fought together in the mud, in the dirt, in the sky and everywhere else. As they fought, they came together until they see each other as not their birth nation first but Tau'ri. As for the Colonials time will tell what if any real good came from this pointless grab for something that was outside their grasp. The only good that we can hope that come from this is that a freedom not originally found in the 12 colonies is born, the freedom of religion. This treaty will mark a new beginning and a new balance for all the powers in the galaxy, the shape of the galaxy has changed. We must all, Tau'ri and Colonial, Cylon, Jaffa, Lucian Alliance, Tok'ra and any other race or culture that rise to the galactic stage must remember another quote from Sun Tzu, the unhappy can be made happy again but the dead can't be brought back to life. The guns are now silent, let us hope that they remain silent and that the powers of the galaxy can work together for peace and liberty in the galaxy. Thank you all…these proceedings are closed."

With that it was all over, the war was over and a new balance had been greeted in the Galaxy, the Tau'ri while having a smaller number of ships, men and worlds where the main power in the galaxy. They held the mental of the Ancients, they were the 5th race.

**The withdraw of the Tau'ri forces which were already underway only speed up over the next few hours after the signing of the treaty.** The warships and transports began to pull out, some would stay behind to protect the soldiers staying behind and most of all the Ragnarok as it moved toward Aquaria to begin the work of terraforming it. For the bulk of the fleet they headed first toward Valhalla and from there they each had separated destinations. The grand fleet which had smashed the Colonial Navy in hours would be broken up and separated into 7 different locations and joining with the forces there would form the seven fleets would be the new backbone of the Tau'ri space navy. The 1st fleet would head to Earth to protect it along with Mars and Venus. The 2nd fleet would be stationed on Valhalla and the 12 colonies with the 3rd fleet patrolling in between the Valhalla and the heart of Tau'ri power. The 4th and the 6th fleet would head toward Lanagara. Lanagara was located near a major hot zone between multiple factions of Free Jaffa and Lucian Alliances factions. They would be tasked with defending Lanagara and the surrounding area the possibility of a war breaking out there was a major concern to the Tau'ri leaderships, having two fleets there would protect the second most populated world in the Tau'ri alliance behind Earth. The 5th and 7th fleets where planned to be the fleets which went out and explore and project power across the new Tau'ri space, with the 7th fleet being the teeth of the Tau'ri fleet. There was a 8th and a 9th fleet but those ships where assigned to the Pegasus galaxy and hadn't taken part in the war in the colonies.

Some of the cargo transports would be sold off to shipping companies to move items between the Tau'ri worlds, the stargate would stay a mostly military item for the foreseeable future. Some business had even placed orders in at the Valhalla ship yards for cruise passenger liners.

**The idea of passenger liners was far from the mind of Private Torren Shepard stood at a guard post in what had been the heart of Hypatia.** The temple of Ares was just across the street from him and the evidence of a blood bath was easy for the eye to find. The roadway had been washed of blood by the sidewalks still where stained and the what appeared to be giant shotgun pellets where bended in what remained of the Ares statue in the middle of the Y shaped intersection. Tau'ri armor and other vehicles rolled past him and his fellow marine Private Ashely Williams, soldiers were sitting on top of Leopard tanks, Cougars APC and anything else they could get on. They had spent the day fighting and didn't feel like walking. As an APC passed the two of them he saw one of his fellow marines show a wrist covered with watches and he heard him asking if anyone wanted to buy them.

"I wonder if he took them from the dead or just liberated them from a jewelry store." stated Ashely

"Likely the dead, if he had gotten them from a jewelry store he would have gotten jewelry and diamonds not just watches." stated Shepard, he wasn't totally sure how he felt about it. He didn't like the idea of stealing items from civilians but items from military enemies where different. He had stuffed a pistol from a colonial officer he found dead in his pack, he had taken the gun but he hadn't taken the man's wedding ring. He also had some flags and banners he stumbled upon but nothing anyone would really miss.

"Likely." confirmed Ashly

"I agree." said a voice as both marines jumped a bit as they turned to see an officer standing only a couple of feet away from them. Ashley jumped to attention while Torren seemed to take it a little less professional.

"I should crew you out for not snapping to attention, what would your father think?" inquired Colonel O'Neill as Torren laughed a bit.

"I am not sure, but my mom would say he was rubbed off on me." stated Torren as O'Neill waved to have Ashley relax.

"Very true, I am glad that you made it out ok." Said O'Neill "So will everyone in my family."

"It was touch and go there for a little bit but I am sure that was same for you." stated Torren.

"Yes and no, I mostly worked in clearing out ruminates of Colonial forces in the city here but after we pushed through it was mostly a mop up job." Stated O'Neill "I heard from some officers that you pretty good and maybe they put you in for officers school."

"That is what my family wants and I want to be an officer but…" started Torren

"You're worried that people will think that you got where you are because of who your father is?" inquired O'Neill with a laugh, "Do you forget who I am? I am not my father's son I am his clone and either way you earned that spot if you want it."

"Thank you Sir." Stated Shepard "If I didn't want to go to officers school what options would be open to me?"

"Likely assigned to one of the trading outposts we are going to set up or a base on somewhere within Tau'ri space." Stated O'Neill "At best you may get assigned to an SG team but even there people will think you got there because your father is Commander Pegasus."

"Damned if I do, Damned if I don't." stated Shepard

"Well there is a 3rd way, you could go to officers school and if you get in the upper part of the class you could request to be put on a very special project I can't tell you about because I officially don't know about it." Advised O'Neill with a grin, he knew about the planned mission to a distance galaxy to set up a Super gate to send a new ship to finish the mission of the Destiny. With the war over that operation would kick off and the ship would begin to take form.

"Thank you sir, I may take you up on that advise." Stated Shepard "How is everyone doing with your family?"

"Older me is going to retire, so he is happy." Admitted O'Neill "I am just happy that Samantha was too young to enlist, she wanted too but…"

"Yes." Laughed Shepard "She is younger than me and I just got in before they began this whole thing."

**Just north of the Hill of Heroes in the colonial prisoners in the camp where lined up in front of only three Tau'ri officials in front of a large table.** Behind them another three Tau'ri officers were going through multiple large trucks stacked full of personal items taken from the prisoners when they were taken into custody. The process was straight forward as it was simple, the prisoner went up to the official looked into a small item and said their name. Supposedly that would confirm if they were telling the truth, then they would sign a document saying that they would never take up arms against the Tau'ri and if they did they would be harshly punished. After that they would place their hands on a computer pad which scanned them and took some DNA sample. All of that took maybe five minutes at the most but what took forever was when they attempted to find personal items taken from them on the trucks. Here the Tau'ri where not nearly as organized and it was slowing everything down to a crawl.

"This fraken sucks." cursed Starbucks "We shouldn't have to do this?"

"No, but looking at the treaty they could have been a lot harsher to us." countered Lee "They aren't going to enslave us or work us to death. Aside from accepting other religions and other items that will drive the Sagittarians and Gememons crazy nothing will really change in a governmental sense."

"Except all the dead." stated Kara as the line moved forward.

"True, however I can't help but remember that it could have been worse." Added Lee as Kara looked at him. "It could have been the Cylons who beaten us and they wouldn't have shown any mercy to us at all."

Kara didn't say anything but the look on her face said she knew he was right but didn't want to accept it.

"I am just wondering what we will do once this is all over." stated Lee "They will not be focused on military for a while and the Tau'ri destroyed most of our Vipers and Raptors. We likely have more pilots then birds at the moment. There may not be places for us in the military at the moment."

"I don't have that many skills outside of being a viper pilot." admitted Kara as she tried to think what she could do instead of being a pilot.

"You shot down an Eagle fighter, that may earn you a spot in whatever type of Colonial Military forms after this all is over." advised Lee "Whatever it is, it will be a shadow of what it was and with the Tau'ri ships in our own systems it means they will not be anywhere near to what the Tau'ri have."

"We will just have to improve, we can do it." stated Kara

"I have seen where the Tau'ri are already, they are hundreds if not thousands of years ahead of us. Even if they stay still and don't advance which is unlikely they will still be head of us for the distance future." Stated Lee before letting out a long breath. "Nothing we can do about that, we need to focus on building whatever lives we have now."

**Outside of another prison camp the newly freed Private Acacia rolled her best friend Private Medea down the road in a wheel chair.** Medea was almost in perfect heath thanks to the Tau'ri medical technology, the only major problem was that her lower legs, one from the knee down the other from the ankle down was gone. Instead stumps covered with the fabric from her pants covered them. In her lap sat both women's bags as they moved down the streets.

The streets where full of people, Tau'ri mostly in vehicles moved down the streets heading toward different landing areas where their ships would be waiting to take them off world. For the colonials it was more complex, the Tau'ri had set up landing zones where Tau'ri ships would pick them up and transport them back to their home worlds. The main problem was that there was simply too many war weary colonials trying to head home. The Tau'ri had set up stations where trucks would come and pick them up to take them to the different landing areas. The problem was that these places where overflowing and most people then decided that walking began the best option they had.

"I can't believe you have to wait 2 months for your legs." complained Acacia as she rolled her friend through the streets.

"I know, but I look at it this way. I may not even had gotten new legs if it wasn't for the Tau'ri technology." countered Medea "They are cloning legs for me and the way they say it, they have a long list of people coming in for treatments like mine and I am not a high need. People with worse injuries and Tau'ri are ahead of me on that list. I saw a young kid maybe 15 or 16 who had his entire lower jaw removed by a bullet."

"Still, I am the one who has to push you to the nearest extraction point for Libra and that is way on the other side of town." complained Acacia as she noticed a line of Tau'ri trucks, APCs and recon vehicles forming up in a parking lot.

Standing near the front of one of the lines talking with some other officers was Lieutenant Lefeld. The Tau'ri had for the most part had taken a more relax tone with the colonials, they still wore battle dress with their weapons slung over their soldiers but instead of full visor helmets they wore either caps or their helmets with the front face plate open. Lefeld lifted his eyes from the map and toward the two of them and waved them to come toward them.

"Hello, you two." Said Lefeld with a smile "Doing better?"

"I wish I could walk." Complained Medea

"Not going to go clubbing any time soon, Acacia told me that you two were going to do that before we launched our invasion." Stated Lefeld

"She did…did she." said Medea with a smirk as she looked up at her friend, who was blushing slightly. "Well I will have to talk to her about that on our long journey to our destination."

"You're from Libra right?" inquired Lefeld as he studied his computer pad again. It showed a map of the city on it where multiple marks which showed the landing area for Tau'ri ships that would bring the colonial soldiers home. The Libran landing zone was clear on the other side of the war-torn city. "You two have some distance to go to get to the extraction point."

"Yes, we do." Complained Acacia "Can you give us a lift?"

"Well, we are heading toward the Stargate near the hill of Hero's that is in the opposite direction as you are heading." Answered Lefeld as both women lowered their heads. "However, we do pass right beside another one of the Libran ship launch points on our way to the gate, if you don't mind going to that one we can give you a lift."

"Will you get into trouble?" inquired Acacia as Lefeld brushed away the idea.

"We are already transporting some locals of Hypatia closer to the city, shouldn't be a major problem. We will just have to put you in a Puma, we can't have one of the trucks full of passengers stop."

"Thanks." Said Acacia "It may be a greater distance but it will take longer to walk to the place. When do you leave?"

The answer came as a nearby group of vehicles came to life and began to roll out of the area.

"Follow me." ordered Lefeld as they headed toward one of the recon vehicles, another Tau'ri stood at the top mounted machine gun.

"Who are these two sir?" inquired the gunner

"Two Libran soldiers, we are going to give them a lift to their landing area. We are going to pass right by it." explained Lefeld as the solider looked at the two of them, then noticed that one of them didn't have legs.

"Looks like they need it." Confirmed the solider as he reached into his vest and pulled out a candy bar and tossed it to Medea. She caught it with ease and looked at the M&amp;M pack. "Here, you look hungry."

"Thanks." Said Medea as Lefeld moved and picked her up bridal style and put her into the passengers seat, thanks to his power armor giving him extra strength it was easy. The wheel chair broke down and was put behind Lefeld who took up the duty of driving while Acacia sat behind her friend. The Tau'ri gunner still stood in the puma's turret with the machine gun ready but it was clear no one was expecting a fight. Acacia reached over to where the seat belt normally would be but found it was on the opposite side of where it was on the Colonial vehicles. Neither one of the Tau'ri buckled up which caused both colonials to look at them, standing orders were to buckle up.

"A buckle gets in your way if a roadside bomb goes off and you need to get out of your vehicle. We don't expect any but we aren't taking the risk." answered Lefeld as the Puma headed down the road, it followed a line of trucks loaded with Tau'ri soldiers and some Colonials, behind it was even more trucks. The roadways where full of vehicles and even in the fields Tau'ri tanks rumbled across the ground.

"How…how did you get all this in?" inquired Medea as she looked at the tanks which they passed on the road, it was more tanks then she had ever seen in her life.

"Kind of easy with a stargate." answered Lefeld as both colonials looked at each other.

"I don't think they know about that." answered the gunner "They will learn about it soon, if we set up a base I wouldn't be surprised if they give the base a stargate. They will also begin broadcasting our TV stations into the colonies."

"The circle symbol in the middle of our flag, that is not a symbol that is a Stargate a device that opens a wormhole between another stargate in the network." answered Lefeld "With that you can walk through one stargate and within seconds walk out of another stargate on another planet across the galaxy."

"Line up a bunch of military power, beam in the gate and drive through it and then boom you have an invasion force." Stated the gunner with a laugh.

"How?" inquired Acacia "How is that possible."

"How the hell are we supposed to know, we are troopers not scientists." Stated the Gunner as they headed down the road.

"Troopers?" inquired Acacia

"Paratroopers, or troopers for short." Answered Lefeld "We are airborne soldiers dropping from the sky, we didn't come through the gate. We jumped out of aircraft into the night sky."

"That is crazy that would be a very disorganized way to fight a battle." countered Acacia

"Worked on you all." laughed the Gunner "And other enemies in our history. Sir, do we know where we are going after our parade in New York?"

"We come back here." Answered Lefeld as Acacia looked at him. "We have been assigned peace keeping duty here and then once our base is set up on Aquaria we will likely be stationed there."

"Aquaria is a wasteland? How can you be stationed there?" inquired Acacia

"The Ragnarok is going to terraform it and make it like Earth." Said Lefeld before thinking about it for a moment. "Like Caprica for you."

Both colonial women shook their heads.

"Cloning replacement limbs, traveling in this stargate and terraforming a world that is a nuclear wasteland." Stated Acacia "Is there anything you can't do?"

"Not much of anything it seems." Stated Lefeld

"You colonials picked the wrong people to f with when you fired on Valhalla all those years ago." Stated the gunner as a flight of Eagle fighters flew past the line of vehicles moving down the road.

"Years? The war has only been on a few months?" countered Medea

"No, it has been just over 4 years since that strike." answered Lefeld "I should know, I was a raw 18 year old trooper just out of jump school I stood on a hill outside of Disney World with that mushroom cloud rising in the distance."

"How…how is that possible?" inquired Medea "Is our years longer than yours or…"

"We put the colonies in a time dalliance field, we slowed down time in your space which allowed us to build up forces and plan our attack." answered the gunner "Everything you see, was built in four years."

"I wouldn't be surprised if you see it first hand, they will likely use time dalliance on Aquaria to allow the cleanup process to speed up." stated Lefeld "So if I may inquire what are you two going to do once you get home."

"Not, sure wait for my new legs and get a job or go to school." stated Medea

"Same here, I hope that the military honors its sign on perks, free schooling and land on Kobol." stated Acacia "Well aside from land on Kobol but I didn't plan to use that."

Both Tau'ri chuckled to themselves.

"So your government offered the same thing to you that they offered to us." Laughed Lefeld "If I wanted I could go on and take college classes or even be discharged and get that land I have coming to me, but I am a lifer, I am staying in the military, maybe I will take online classes, I do want to get to a higher officer rank."

"And you will be stationed here?" inquired Acacia with a smile.

"Aquaria, maybe your government will offer land on Aquaria to soldiers like you? Whatever we don't take for our base and base housing will be handed over to the new Aquaria government." stated Lefeld "It isn't going to be an ice ball of a world anymore."

"We shall have to see." Said Acacia, on some levels she knew he was right too many worlds was overpopulated and living space was needed. Then she looked out the window of the Tau'ri military vehicle, she saw the war-torn landscape and shallow graves which marked colonial dead. Maybe overpopulation wasn't going to be an issue for a while.

"So where are you from?" inquired Acacia as she decided to change the topic.

"A little town to the South of Columbus Ohio." stated Lefeld before tapping the roof and yelling up at the gunner. "Go…Buckeyes!"

The gunner slapped the roof in response.

"Go…Blue!" yelled the gunner as both of the men laughed at each other causing looks between the girls.

"Two rival university and sports teams." explained Lefeld as the women nodded their heads in understanding.

"I guess we will learn about that, I assuming your news and entertainment broadcasts will come along with your military bases." Stated Medea

They spent the next two hours on their drive just talking about different things, they were sharing each other's culture. Finally, the Puma recon vehicle rolled to a stop, on the side of the road. The trucks which had been following it paid it no mind as they kept moving down the road. Only a few hundred yards away down a side road which was crowed with colonials was a Hadrian class transport ship. A large sign hung from a street light.

"Libra departure." Read Medea as Lefeld got out and using his power armor he lifted her out of the Puma and into the wheelchair. "Thanks it would have taken us hours to reach the one closer to Lezbha."

"No problem." Said Lefeld as suddenly Acacia offered him a piece of paper. He lifted an eyebrow as he opened it up to show a list of numbers.

"I think I owe you a drink and maybe a dinner for all of this." responded Acacia with a smile before leaning forward and kissing him on the cheek. "So give me a call when you have a chance."

Lefeld was too stunned to do anything for a moment as both Medea and the Gunner laughed at his expense. Finally he snapped out of it and nodded his head.

"I will do that." Confirmed Lefeld before turning and getting back into his recon vehicle and rejoining the mass of Tau'ri leaving Tauron.

**Onboard the Missouri President Adar and the Spiro brothers watched as the rest of the Colonial delegation left them.** They would be taken into custody to await trail which was sure to come in their future. To the amazement of President Adar the two Spiro brothers where not visible upset in any way in fact they seemed almost happy. That fact even threw the four Tau'ri guards in the room with them for a loop.

"Why are you so happy?" inquired one of the guards.

"We are going to Kobol." Said Priest Spiro "It is the nearest Tau'ri held world and from there we will wait for the trail before these Nox. We will walk on the surface of the holy world."

The guards shared a look before one of them laughed.

"You are not going to Valhalla." stated the guard "We are going to transport you to Tauron, there you will journey with the Nox through the stargate to their home world for questioning and your trail. You will never set a foot on Valhalla."

The two Spiros brothers shared a look, they hadn't expected that. The two old men, had expected that any trail would take years before it would take place. That meant that they would have years to walk on the surface of their holy world.

"And even after the trail do you think our leaders will allow you to visit Valhalla." Stated the Guard

"But we were promised that we could visit Kobol." stated Priest Spiro

"And so the people of the 12 colonies will be allowed to visit Valhalla." Added Doctor Woolsey as he entered the conversation. "Do you think we would allow just anyone to visit our world? No it is in the treaty that we would issue visas which will allow people to visit and one of the things we will look at is crimes. Which means the moment you are convicted for your crimes by the Nox you will not only face a prison sentence but you will be barred from going to Valhalla."

"What?" inquired Priest Spiro "You can't do that!"

"They can, it is the old laws we had before we unified and we allowed free travel between the worlds." explained President Adar before looking at General Leong. "Would your side be open to a plea deal?"

"What do you have in mind?" inquired General Leong.

"I know I will be found guilty, I know I will get life sentence." Stated former President Adar "You have the documents of my orders and I can't get around that."

"And the Nox unlike us in our legal system allows an advance lie detector which tells with almost 100% accurate if a person is lying or telling the truth." Stated Doctor Woolsey, that little bit of technology was highly questionable when it came to legal terms. "The moment you take the stand, they have you."

"I see, I don't want to spend the time I have left on some distance world away from my family." stated Adar "If I plea guilty, I want the possibility of patrol and I am imprisoned in a level 3 prison in the colonies."

Woolsey leaned back a bit, he wasn't aware that a level 3 Prison was basically a minimal security prison, they had the least violent criminal the most freedoms inside the walls and other perks.

"I will have to see what my leaders want to do, but I wouldn't be surprised if they take you up on it." Stated Woolsey "Maybe we a couple of years in a Max security prison of our own before we transfer you to a lower level, just to make the news headlines easier."

"I understand that." admitted Adar as Woolsey looked at the remaining two colonials.

"We will trust the Lords of Kobol." stated the elder Spiro brother.

"When we are found innocent, we will go to Kobol and we will have the honor of walking on the birthplace of humanity." stated Priest Spiro as Woolsey nodded his head in understanding.

"Very well." Stated Woolsey as he looked at his watch. "You all should be leaving shortly."

With a flash of light all three Colonials disappeared in a flash of light and reappeared in the middle of a field surrounded by the might of the Tau'ri. There was multiple tanks, APCs, and other weapons of war, it was a display of power and it left the Colonials shaking a bit in fear.

"Shall we go?" said a figure none of them had noticed, it was one of the strange Nox creatures. He moved his hand toward a metal disk behind them. It began to spin as multiple lights activated on the disk. Finally with a single burst of blue energy a vortex of what appeared to be a strange liquid formed in the disk before settling down. "Follow me please."

**Onboard the Tau'ri space station Saul Tigh sat at a table playing a card game with the Galen Tyrol, over the past few hours their true memories had returned until they knew who and what they really were. **

"Fraken, we are fraken Cylons." cursed Saul as he looked at the tanks where the other final five Cylons where located, none of the others had died and as such their new bodies where still floating in their tanks.

Suddenly the doors to their containment area opened and Cavil along with four Cylons centurions flanking him on either side.

"So what do you want?" inquired Galen not even turning to look at the humanoid Cylon he had helped create all those years ago.

"Your fate has been decided." Stated Cavil as both elder humanoid Cylons turned their attention toward him. "It took some time to convince the my fellow Cylons that we can't bring you to the new world we are building. We are within a handful of jumps of the colonial worlds. If you escape you could get to them and ruin all our plans."

"So you are going to kill us aren't you?" inquired Galen

"In a way, the Tau'ri are going to settle you in a place on Earth called Hawaii." stated Cavil "Not totally sure where that is on Earth but you will be out of reach of the colonials and you will not be able to go alert them about our plans in any way, we don't want them to learn about the humanoid cylons."

"Go Frak yourself we aren't going to let you destroy the Colonies." Stated Galen

"They already destroyed themselves, the Tau'ri did our work for us, now it is time to rebuild them in a way we want them to be." stated Cavil before turning to leave. "Enjoy Hawaii."

**General Leong sat in her office on board the Missouri, she wasn't the only General in the room, she wasn't even the highest ranking one. **Sitting across from her was General Carter and General O'Neill, the second and 1st highest ranking officers in the Tau'ri military. Along with them was General Raj-Singh he was the lowest ranking General in the room. They sat across from each other with a coffee table between the three of them, all of them had forgone coffee and had instead raided the large bar in the corner of the office. She had taken some rice wine for herself, General Rag-sing had gotten a fine bottle of brandy, General Carter had taken a bottle of wine for herself while General O'Neill had gotten a bottle of whiskey for himself. General Leong looked at the two Americans, she had nothing but respect for the two war heroes before her. They had done things she wouldn't do in her crazies' dreams and had come out the other side.

"Well it is nice to go out on a high note." said General O'Neill as he took a drink from his whiskey. "I will announce my retirement in a couple of days."

"Sir, you deserve your rest." Said General Leong as the 72-year-old General O'Neill nodded his head. The medical technologies that would allow the young 18-year-old who took part in the battles in this war would likely have a life span of at least 150 maybe even 200 years. However, that medical technology had come too late for General O'Neill and his generation. He would have a longer life for sure but he wouldn't live as long as the 56-year-old General Carter or herself at the age of 47.

"That means you will be called up to bat Carter." said O'Neill

"They want me to become President." reported Carter as General O'Neill and the others looked at her.

"I recommend you for that." admitted General Leong as everyone looked at her. "My government wanted me to attempt to use this victories here to catapult myself into political power. I am sorry but the only way for me to prevent that would be to give them a better option. That was you."

"You could have said no." said O'Neill

"I could but it would have been a waste, they would have organized forces behind the scene to force my hand." said General Leong "With you they get something they want and it helps the Tau'ri far greater then I could ever do in an office post."

"You would become Supreme commander of the Tau'ri." Stated General Raj-Sing "There is no way General Shepard can be lured to a command position on Earth, he loves it out in the Pegegus Galaxy."

"Yes, and that will make my government happy while you take the great benefits that came from this war and turn it to our advantage." Stated General Leong as she took a drink of her rice wine. "As much as I hate to say this, I think the Colonials did us a great favor when that mushroom cloud rose over Valhalla. It united us into a common people like nothing else could. It gave us a common enemy, a common struggle and now all our forces from multiple different nations have fought together and bleed together on the battlefield. Tell me do you think the multiple different people around the world be more accepting of a united government with a single elected ruler without this war bring them together."

"Likely." Admitted O'Neill "Still it wasn't worth the price of all those lives."

General Leong nodded her head in agreement.

"The same results would have been reached in time." Admitted General Leong "Still the damage was done and we made the best advantage from the situation given to us."

"The Colonials may disagree with that, when it comes to all the deaths on their side." Countered General Raj-Sing "Still they were the ones who started this whole war."

"Agreed." confirmed Carter

"Now, General Carter you can take this unity and use to the best results of the Tau'ri. Anyone else aside from possible General O'Neill would cause a political fight that could do a lot of damage. You are the best option to be the 1st president of the united Tau'ri." Said General Leong as she looked at General Carter. "You are the best choice, you have experience both with military terms and diplomatic fields. You are beloved across every group with the Tau'ri and you understand the technology that is coming. You will not have to be explained to on how it works."

"Carter, if you throw your hat into the ring here you are all but guaranteed a victory." Admitted General O'Neill "I wouldn't envy some of the tasks before you, all the major projects being started now that the war is over. The multiple settlements that are starting up and there is always military issues both on and off Earth."

"Any idea when you will have to make the choice?" inquired General Leong.

"They want to announce the reformations to the government within the next two to three weeks and then have an election within 18 months." stated Carter as she took a drink of her wine and then seamed to resign herself. "I will have to think of some of the policies I want to carry out and projects as well, we can't build everything we want at once."

"So you will take the Office of the President." said General Leong as General Carter nodded her head.

"I will have to talk to Jonas Quinn, see if I can drag him into the VP spot, likely they will get everything in place for an election in two years so 2026 or so." said General Carter as General Leong blinked, she hadn't expected that to be her VP choice. Then she thought about it, Jonas Quinn was a hero to the Langara people and a minor one to the people on Earth, he would help make Langara bond to the Tau'ri even stronger.

"To President Samantha Carter in 2026." Said O'Neill as all four of them lifted their drinks up.

**Three days later the sun was shining above them, the streets of the city that never sleeps where full of people waving mini flags, the mini flags of every Tau'ri nation was being waved but the most common was the Tau'ri flag along with the American flag.** Marching in unison with the men and women he had jumped into the darkened night over Tauron was Lieutenant Lefeld. His eyes scanned the crowed as they marched, fathers with young children on their shoulders pointed at the display of force which marched past. Their children waving small flags in their hands, both American and a lot of them Tau'ri. Mothers where taking photos of the grand scene before them. Lefeld smiled as they marched, they turned a corner and instantly the crowd erupted in cheering and for a moment, he was left speechless as they entered Time Square which had decked out for the event.

**Across the world Jager stood in the copula of his tank as it rolled down the streets of Berlin. He saluted the grand reviewing stand where the German Chancellor stood beholding the parade.** With a roar, a flight of Adar attack helicopters flew overhead as the neared the Brandenburg gate, hanging from the gate where five flags, the largest in the center was the silver and blue of the Tau'ri flag with a pair of German flags on either side. The outer two where smaller Tau'ri flags. A sense of pride filled Jager as he hit his intercom.

"Hell, of a welcome to Earth isn't it Spiro." Said Jager, he knew a matching parade was taking place in London and in Paris.

"Sure is." Said Spiro as he looked out over the event from his diver compartment at all the people on the streets. He could only do that for a moment as he lined up to pass under the gate.

**Fireworks exploded in the darkened sky of Moscow as Colonel Drugrov stood looking out the window at the massive celebrating raging across the city most of all in Red Square where for the lack of a better terms a street party was raging.** Soldiers where dancing on the streets and clapping along to music, even some of the other nations soldiers which had come to take part in Moscow's celebrations were taking part. Drogrov lifted his glass of vodka to them all as more fireworks filled the night sky on his belt was the knife he had taken from the dead Secretary Helena Cain. Joining them was the sound of church bells and the simple honking of horns from cars. A party was raging in the city for sure.

**Captain Rose Ryan banked her Taita fighter bomber low over the bay, she turned her gaze toward one side to see that the other three birds where keeping formation with her on that side.** She turned to the other side and saw another three birds in similar positions along with the Golden Gate Bridge. She headed toward downtown and hit a button on her control panel. For a moment she remembered that was the same button she had hit to drop the nuke that had destroyed Aquaria. Now instead of a nuke it opened two canisters attached to her wings. Instantly silver smoke came out the back of her bird coloring the sky. Beside her the other aircraft did the same turning their smoke blue, then the next two out had silver smoke and finally blue again. Blue and silver the colors of the Tau'ri. Below them people cheered as they wanted them fly over the large stands which had been set up along the bay for the massive air show which was planned to begin shortly.

The Tau'ri had been through war, they had seen the horrors of the nuke explosion outside of Celin on Valhalla. Tomorrow work would begin on new projects and new adventures, there would be challenges both on Earth which was still not fully unified and out in space. There would be social problems that will rise from integrating all the different cultures and beliefs into a single united government. There would also be great rewards as new technologies and discoveries forever changed the way they saw themselves. They finally took the mantle left them by the other four great race and became the 5th race. All that would come, all that would wait for the moment, for tonight they celebrated and the people of five worlds, Earth, Lanagara, Valhalla, Mars and Venus dreamed of the future before them.

**Epilogue **

In the darkness of space outside the orbit of Pluto a large armada of hundreds of giant warships headed at their max speed toward their destination the distance star they called Tosev. The once tiny point of light in the distance when they started was now bigger but still tiny. Each ship of the nearly 500 strong fleet moved at their max speed at a quarter of the speed of light. Onboard the ships over a million members of a reptilian like race called the Race rested in frozen cold sleep, these where all male and all trained soldiers bent on conquest. They had a date with destiny, a date with battle and a mission to add a 5th world to the Empire who had ruled their united people for over 100,000 years, only 50,000 of the much longer years of Tosev 3.

The battle they thought was ahead of them on a planet they called Tosev 3 was going to be the easiest in their long hundreds of thousands of years of civilization, the big ugly sword swing primitives would be no match to the Emperor's soldiers. They had been planning this invasion for thousands of years, carefully measuring the costs and estimating the possible conflicts that would come from adding two new worlds to the empire. They had sent a probe to Tosev 3 around 1800 years ago, which translated into around 900 local years, they had seen the sword swinging and beast riding Tosevites and knew that this would be the easiest conquest in the history of the Race. These soldiers had already brought the world of Vantic 5 under their control and the people of Vantic 5 had primitive guns when they invaded 35 years ago and now it was Tosev 3 turn. Once they were finished the empire would have 5 worlds and maybe in a few thousand years more they would plan their next conquest and spread the Race out.

They had no idea they were heading into the heart of the most powerful civilization in the galaxy. A group that had advanced in ways that wouldn't have been considered possible by the Race and at such speeds that would be considered inconceivable. They were heading toward Earth and the men and women of the Tau'ri who protected it.

**CONTACT OF RACES-COMING JUNE OF 2017**

**Well it is over, Contact at Kobol is over, after 80 chapters this part of the story is coming to an end, but do not worry the sequel will bring back old faces both Tau'ri, Colonial and maybe others as well as add new ones as well. The next story as I currently plan it will not be as long as this one, so I hope all those who really want the Mass Effect Stargate Story which will come next will stay with me through the next story. I will be introducing new technologies for the Tau'ri and new issues as well. Now I would like to thank everyone who reviewed, you helped make this story better by motiving me to keep going even if some of you need to learn how to wait. Now I hope to see you all in the next story, thank you Wilkins75. **


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